There is a big flaw in the game. At least in my opinion, though I have noticed it’s not a popular discussion subject. But I can explain it.

This game is all about numbers. Managers try to build a team with good players, and numbers are used to decide on how good a player is. But what do the numbers say? Is a 90 keeping 20 shooting keeper better than a 89 keeping 30 shooting keeper, all things being equal? Yes it is, according to the guide: “Shooting: ability to shoot; not used by goalkeepers” Well, that helps. But how important are the different stats for other positions? That is unclear. A 85 avg player can be better than a 87 avg player, but when is that the case? Are main skills (tackling for defenders for example) more important then secondary skills, or not? I guess a lot of people would like to know, still http://www.rubysoccer.com/mediawiki/index.php/Players_Skills give limited info. Why not add more information there?

The admins have said something about it before. It is afaik an official policy not to tell everything they could tell. Why is this? One could argue “by not telling some things, we give managers a chance to find out those things for themselves.” However, there is no – scientifically valid – way to find out. One would have to experiment with all things being equal, or with a lot of data input, and this is not possible, and even then, it’s not so clear how to interpret the data. So I don’t think this is a good reason. Another reason for the policy could be that it’s more fun if you don’t know everything. I think though that a game in general is more fun if you understand it better. It’s better if you know that your actions make sense, than that if you know that you might as well use a coin flip to make decisions.

A more or less valid reason for not explaining more about the skills is that it’s difficult to explain. All players use all skills, it depends on the situation what skill is being used. There’s no golden formula to really value how good a player is. I can understand that. But I’m sure there is more to say then the wiki currently says. For example, I think I’ve seen mentioned that a player on A -1 uses tackling more than on A 0. If this is the case, why is it not in the guide? I also can make an educated guess that heading is being used more on AC than on MR/ML, so the value of heading depends on the position. Would it really hurt to add to the wiki on which positions heading is the most and the less important? To explain passing distance, when you should use short, when long, etc? I thihk not, on the contrary.

So sum up, more information/knowledge is more fun in my opinion. Improving the help/wiki is the best way in making the game better.

YES attributes should mean something. seems they dont mean shit right now i brought this up years ago

Well, excluding goalkeepers and the keeping atrributte, all other positions use all attribute depending on what the player is doing during the match. I think we can add more to the wiki for each skill, but there is not much more to add really. What we can do is be a little more specific about when each skill is used, something like “tackle is used to determine if the player was successful when trying to take the ball for an opponent” or
“passing is used when the player tries to pass the ball, make a cross, take a corner or throw-in to determine how accurate he was in the attempt”, but anything else would require revealing formulas, probabilities and other details of the match engine.

The likelihood of a player in a position using a particular skill really depends on how often he performs whatever action requires that skill. For example, defenders are less likely to use the shooting skill because they’re usually far from the goal. The example you gave about a player on A -1 using tackling more than on A 0 is intuitively true because A -1 exposes the player more to the mid sector of the field than A 0, so he’ll probably have more opportunities to tackle the opponents.

Does it make sense? Is there any particular point you think I’m missing or you just would like to see things like what I’ve just explained added to the Wiki?

Dont see the need to do that, everyone knows what the skills are and intuitively can figure how the game uses them…

Dimitri of course a 85 avg can be better than a 87, if he has the right skills for the right position… How you can know that? No one besides the developers really know it completely but I can guess… Defenders probably dont need so much shooting, or control… Mids probably dont need that much heading… Strikers dont need that much tackle or passing… I use this in my teams (with some few exceptions) and it works pretty fine usually.

Davison, not that anyone cares much for what you say but, again, completely wrong… Just because you dont understand what, they do mean something, they are the only thing that means something when choosing players

with all the respect Dimitri, this topic as no logic at all, in my point of view. there isn’t any strategy football game that explains 100% how it works. that would be too boring.

if everyone start playing with the same “principles”, it would suck. there are already managers copying tactics from others, so now you want that everyone play according to the same pattern?

i played SS/MS for years, i now play RS for 6 years and i still didn’t figure out 100% how it works, i’m still learning and i would like to keep it that way. the day i figured out everything, as you suggest, i would just quit. cause it would lost all the fun.

i think Gabriel and Danilo already explained more then they should…

and yes, we have to experiment…

Rui, why would it suck? Imagine that in real life Sunderland uses the same tactics as Barcelona, would they suddenly start to win much more? No, cause they have different players. And I don’t think that in RS copying the formation/tactics of whichever team won the world cup will be likely more succesful than copying the formation/tactics of the bottom team. You should play in whatever works for your players. But to try to solve the puzzle, it should be clear what the numbers of your players mean, imo.

Gabriel, yes, a clearer description like that would help. I talked about skills, but also the descriptions of formations is unclear, I will explain that in the next posting.

http://www.rubysoccer.com/mediawiki/index.php/Formations

“The match field on RubySoccer is 81×45 “squares”. "

Does this mean A0 is about 14 squares from the goal? This is important for shooting distance.

“Tackling Intensity: the intensity of your players tackles influence how often their tackles will be successful but also how often they will commit fouls”

This just says there is an influence, but not what the influence is. I guess:
Easy → Lower chance on a succesful tackle, lower chance on a foul, higher chance on a failed tackle.
Normal → Default
Hard → Higher chance on a succesful tackle, higher chance on a foul, lower chance on a failed tackle.

“Passing Frequency: players decision to pass the ball or run with it is influenced by this tactic. There is no way to tell the exact probability as there are other factors in place, but in rough number we have 30% chance of passing if you choose “rare”, 50% if you choose “normal” and 70% if you choose “often”. Defenders tend to pass more frequently while attackers and wingers less frequently."

Does the last sentence say that defenders pass more frequently than midfielders? If so, why is it mentioned here and not in the description of passing skills?

“Passing Style: “short” means your players will look for teammates within a 20 “squares” range when passing the ball, if you choose “medium” the range is 35, and “long” range is 50."

In real life, the longer the pass, the higher the chance it fails. I suppose it’s the same in RS? Is pass accuracy just influenced by passing or also by tackling skill of the opponent? And in long range, someone playing DR, does he have the same chance passing to DL/ML and AR or would he prefer AR?

“Passing Priority: picking a “mixed” strategy will give you a 50% chance of passing to wingers and 50% to passing to central players, supposing both are within passing range. Choosing “along sides” will raise the chance of passing to a winger to 70%, while “center” reduces this probability to 30%."

L and R are wingers, C is a central player. Do RC and LC also counts as central? Or would ‘Along sides’ means RC/LC will get more passes than C?

“Shooting Distance: “short” range is 10 “squares”, “medium” is 15 “squares” and “long” is 20 “squares”. Whenever a players has the ball and is within this strategy’s range he will shoot. The only exception is for headers, for which the range is always 10."

He will always shoot, even when there are a lot of defenders blocking the shot? I suppose the further away, the more chance of failing?

I agree with Rui on this one. Gabriel already explained to much about the game. I think the rest should just be kept a secret and you should figure it out for yourself. I learned everything I know just by experimenting and writing stuff down. This took time, effort and dedication. Now I woulf find it unfair if all this “work” I did was for nothing if all of a suddeon Gabriel just simply explains all the game’s ‘secrets’.

And you don’t think that the results from your experiments could have been explained by the random factor?

You can almost throw away the random factor if they have proven themselfs over and over again to be a good manager.

If you only observe one match the random.factor.is important, if you observe 100 the randomness is lost. And your conclusions are much stronger.

Just an observation, its the first time i read this descriptions Dimitri posted. Yet, not one is new to me… Useful for new managers sure, but you figure that anyway, they are logical and based in the most simple soccer knoladge.

Your Barcelona argument Works against you Dimitri, by that logic there would Be no chance for.smaller teams to beat stonger ones. That Said we would calculate wich team had the best players.and give them the title, no need to play the matches. A better understanding of the game and using of that knowladge is what makes possible to weaker teams to compete.with richer ones.

Ps: sorry for the bad writting and pontuation. Not used to.this smartphones keyboard

Well said Filipe. I meen, I guess I complain as much about random results as the next guy, but over the course of a season usually it all evens out. Sometimes you outplay someone and later on it’s visa versa. Like Vaughn said, if it was all random you wouldn’t see the same Managers create great teams and win prizes over and over…..

I understand both views, I’ll try to add clarifications to the help without spoiling anything. For now, quick Q & A:

Q: Does this mean A0 is about 14 squares from the goal?
A: Roughly speaking, yes

Q: Easy → Lower chance on a succesful tackle, lower chance on a foul, higher chance on a failed tackle.
Normal → Default
Hard → Higher chance on a succesful tackle, higher chance on a foul, lower chance on a failed tackle.
A: Yes

Q: Does the last sentence say that defenders pass more frequently than midfielders? If so, why is it mentioned here and not in the description of passing skills?
A: Yes, because intuitively a defender wants to clear the ball from his field.

Q: In real life, the longer the pass, the higher the chance it fails. I suppose it’s the same in RS?
A: Yes

Q: Is pass accuracy just influenced by passing or also by tackling skill of the opponent?
A: Tackling has no influence on passing. The ball may bounce or be intercepted by a player in the middle of the way (if it was not a “high pass”). The chance of the intercepting player controlling the ball or have it close to him depends on its control skills.

Q: And in long range, someone playing DR, does he have the same chance passing to DL/ML and AR or would he prefer AR?
A: It has the same chance as long as the players are within range

Q: L and R are wingers, C is a central player. Do RC and LC also counts as central? Or would ‘Along sides’ means RC/LC will get more passes than C?
A: RC/LC will get more passes than C

Q: He will always shoot, even when there are a lot of defenders blocking the shot?
A: Not necessarily, the player may be smart enough to find a better position

Q: I suppose the further away, the more chance of failing (shooting)?
A: Yes

Thanks for the answers Gabriel! I think it would be more logical to have “Defenders tend to pass more frequently while attackers and wingers less frequently.” in the explanation of passing at the /player_skills page.

Filipe, for a weaker team to beat Barcelona, copying their tactics will normally not work. As I said yesterday, " You should play in whatever works for your players."

Can you fix this please ? :)

http://www.rubysoccer.com/game/player_info/364878

I cant use this player as attacker eventhough he has very good shooting ability because he is a defender by default and would get -3 penalty in all skills playing as an attacker, correct?

Well this doesnt make sense. We should be able to change players positions. Maybe by using some “board points” i dont know.

regards

You have Roberto Carlos and you want to use him as a stricker?

Just kidding, he would be a nice stricker, and I believe we will have that option some time in the future, but seems to me not in his “life” time… And this is probably not the right topic either lol

Anyway, for the time being he seems a potential great D+1, a little more tackle and would be perfect for the position…

@amacb you have to admit it could happen. A player with great shooting but that plays awkwardly when put in the attacking positions :-)
Anyway, that’s a future improvement to allow a player to train a different position or side.