Subject: Reporting bugs

Ok, I just hope you're right.

December 31st last year. Blackburn Rovers bead Manchester United 3-2. ManU outshot Blackburn 27-11 (5-3 shots on goal) and lost the game.

Mark Bunn, the reserve keeper for Blackburn has had 8 starts this season and is nowhere as good as most other starting keepers in the Premier League.

United had some amazing shooters in that game, including Hernandez, Wellbeck, Berbatov and Nani.

Even with the top shooters and against a reserve keeper, ManU still lost the game.

Why?

Because sometimes that happens. It's sport. Sometimes the underdog gets a surprise win.

Here's the game sheet for that game: soccernet.espn.go.com/gam...

I think you didn't get the point.

MAN UTD - BLACKBURN

27(5) Shots (on Goal) 11(3)

MAN UTD: 5 shoots on goal, 2 goals: nothing strange. Mark Bunn isn't amazing but anyway he's a top league goalkeeper.

BLACKBURN: 3 shoots on goal, 3 goals: good luck, and De Gea is very young and performed badly more than one time this season.


MY MATCH

ME: 5 shoots on goal, 1 goal: THIS is ABSURD!

MY OPPONENT: 2 shoots on goal, 1 goal: simply bad luck for me.

My opponent had a IV league goalkeeper. Maybe it's bad luck, no problem about that. I don't think this is a bug. I simply think the game engine should be additionally fine-tuned so that a very poor goalkeeper could be a real disadvantage.


Finally, we can't compare a ppm game to a real game match. In real matches there are a infinite number of variables that a game like ppm can't handle. Here everything we have are players stats and team tactics. We can't justify everithing happens here, otherwise we would have a perfect game engine, and that isn't.

Taking 5 shoots on goal from 14-17 rating players (with shoot skill well trained obviously), how many goals should take a 6 rating goalkeeper? I think at least 3 in 80% cases and at least 2 in at least 95% cases.
A game programmer does this: decide which percentages are right and sets game engine parameters so that those percentages are realized playing a great number of games.

Lastly, what I'm saying here is that I suppose that those percentages should be at least checked, becouse it seems to me (but I admit I could be wrong) that matches like my one are frequent.

For example, you could let my yesterday match be simulated by the game engine 1000 times and see how many times I score at least 2 goals and so on. These tests are rather quick and fundamental to understand how the game engine is effectively working.

Just another fundamental thing:

in real life a player can play bad o good, depending from his form, how well he trained, his personal life etc. He can play a wonderful match and after 3 days a very bad match.
In games like PPM it doens't happen. Fixing a player's energy, he will play ALWAYS in the same way. A IV league goalkeeper will ALWAYS play in the same way. If his rating is 6 he can't play a 10 rating match.

you cannot really make any conclusions from a sample size of 5 shots. If a goalkeeper has rating 6, it doesn't mean he can't stop any shots. And if he can stop 1 shot, he can stop all of them with a bit of luck. You can call it luck or you can call it form or whatever you want. It's not different from real life. In real life it's personal life or whatever you name, in the game it's numbers that determine whether the player has a good match or a bad match.

btw, 1 goal on 5 shots is absurd, but 2 goals on 5 shots is nothing strange? If you were talking about 50 shots, that would be different, but 5 is just not enough to make any conclusions.

2 goals on 5 shots is nothing strange because the goalkeer is anyway a top league goalkeeper, even if he isn't Buffon or De Gea.

1 goal on 5 shots is absurd considering that the goalkeeper is a IV league goalkeeper facing II league players.

However, you say that 1 shots is not no much.
Well, let's take that goalkeeper:

Ivan Rulík

RATING: 6

GOAL AGAINST: 12
SAVES: 27
SAVE PERCENTAGE: 69%

Some examples of matches of THIS season:

soccer.powerplaymanager.c...

soccer.powerplaymanager.c... (<-- this is ridiculous!!!)

soccer.powerplaymanager.c...

Maybe we don't arrive at 50 shots as you say, but we have 27 shots. Looking at the forwards' strenght (they always have ratings above 10, most of them have 12,14 and sometimes above 15) I conclude that a save percentage of 69% is TOO HIGH!

Let's take this goalkeeper: Pasquale Stovini , he's the Italian strongest goalkeeper, playing in Italian i.1. His Save Percentage is 77%.

I think that the Save Percentage of a IV league player playing in a II league should be less than 50%.

Im just guessing, but I would say that quality of opponents defence also means a lot to save ratios. Its not the same if attacker is unguarded and comes alone in front of a GK, or if he is well guarded and he can only make a shot at target in a little space frame, so it goes directly at a GK. In the latter case even worse GK would have higher save percentage. While in 1st case even better GK would have lower save percentage.
Very simple, if defence is good enough to close down on your attackers than simply their strikes will not be good enough to be a real danger to any GK. So of those 5 shots at goal its realistic that only some, if any, were a real danger to your goalkeeper

Yes I'm sure there is also something of that kind. But defence's main role is to avoid shooting of the opponent. Sometimes we can think that the defence will make a shoot easier to save, but if you read the report, many times the attacker face 1vs1 the goalkeeper, that is anyway able to save the shot.

Furthermore, his defence is NOT that strong, since often the attackers are stroger that his defenders (see my match or the 3 matches I posted above).

The problem is that a 6 rating goalkeeper should be strong handicap, a real strong handicap, and it is not.

that is your opinion. 69% is nothing spectacular. He is not playing in II league as you say.

Maybe his numbers should be lower, but this is still early in the season and the sample is too small. I have taken the time to simulate some matches of this team and his percentage seems ok to me.

In hockey a difference between goalie with 92% and 88% save percentage is pretty huge. It doesn't seem like much, but that's the difference between elite and poor goalkeeper in hockey.

Below 50% like you say would be just brutal over a long period of time.

One of the biggest thing that strong defence can do is to close the shooting window of a striker in a way that GK can easily collect the ball. Or to completely close the access in a box, leaving the attackers with maybe lots of ontarget shots but from a distance, wich is than much easier to defend for GK

Very interesting, just some points:

1) I was inaccurate. A 6 rating goalkeeper in Czech republic is typical of V league (IV league goalkeeper are much stronger), while he's playing in III league. So there is anyway 2 leagues of difference (III vs V).

2) Maybe you are right that we are early in the season. Let's wait and let's see if the percentage gets lower. Thank you for having done the simulation. If the save percentage you get is lower, then it's all ok.

3) I don't know hockey. I admit I have no idea how many shots there are in a hockey match. I think that a match like this soccer.powerplaymanager.c... is completely absurd. 11 shots on goal and 2 goals.. a 18 rating forward (playing home) who shots 4 times on goal and doesn't score not even 1 gol against a 6 rating goalkeeper (playing away)... We can't discuss about this point, this mathc is insane! If it happened rarely it would be accetable, but the problem is that this is not a bad luck match, this happens very often. Maybe you are right saying below 50% would be brutal, but really 69% is too high because it causes matches like that above happen frequently!


@Ivan1981

That happens in truth. In PPM defense helps mostly shots being blocked or deviated in corner. Yeah maybe also let shots being saved easily sometimes, but if you read the report you'll discover that often attackers shot from 1vs1 with the goalkeeper of the defence doesn't block/deviate the shot.

However, it doesn't matter because he has NOT a strong defence.

You are stuck on this rating 6 goal keeper with the assumption that he's terrible. If you look over that teams other matches, you'll see they tend to lose quite a bit, often because of that goalie.

Matches like this do happen in real life.

I have one of the best goalkeepers in the whole PPM, and still he was at 69% last season with his saves.

You should sell him cheap to me, he is a IV league goalkeeper!

doesn't it have something to do with the game importance you play in the league? His international stats are pretty good.