Match Simulator

Football thrives on its intricacies, from the fluid movements on the field to the strategic decisions made by managers. It's a dynamic spectacle that is always evolving.

In the world of soccer simulations, there's an ongoing debate: should we simplify or embrace the full complexity of the game? While simplification may offer deeper understanding and predictive power, we believe that embracing the sport's inherent complexity is essential to create an engaging, enjoyable, and rich soccer manager experience.

The simulation we're building reflects this intricate dance. It recognizes that matches are influenced by countless variables both on and off the field - player skills, team tactics, weather conditions, and even crowd behavior all play a part in shaping the outcome of a match.

While our work is still in its early stages, we're excited to share the basic mechanics with you, providing insight into our direction and giving you the chance to shape the future of MetaSoccer!

For us, a soccer match is a sequence of moments (steps) where up to 22 players and a referee make decisions based on the information they have. These decisions are coded into our simulation and affect the state of the players and the ball.

Each time the clock ticks one step, all the players on the field perform one of these actions:

Idle (do nothing)
Control the ball
Dribble
Header
Keeper catch
Keeper dive
Keeper pressure
Move/Walk
Pass (short, long, or high)
Pressure
Shot
Slide
Sprint

The action to be performed is determined by a set of heuristics we have coded. We're constantly adding more heuristics to make the players more "intelligent" and the simulation more realistic. We even plan to experiment with an AI model!

Listing all these heuristics is not only tedious but also meaningless for three main reasons: 1) They will change frequently as MetaSoccer is developed. 2) As a manager, you can't control the heuristics (for now). Instead, you control the chances of these actions happening and the odds of them being executed perfectly. 3) Discovering them is part of becoming the boss! Listing them would only take the fun out of the game!

However, consider the following scenarios as an illustration of this intricate dance:

If a player is controlling the ball and an opponent is close, putting pressure on him/her, then he/she tries to pass the ball
If a non-goalkeeper player has an opponent player controlling the ball less than 10 meters away, he/she will put pressure on him/her to try to steal the ball
If a player is less than 20 meters away from the opponent's goal and has no opponent in their way, he/she will shoot
If a goalkeeper player observes that the ball is in the opponent's field, he will move towards the first quarter of the field
And the list goes on...

The outcome of these actions depends on the player's skills. A player with higher speed will move across the field faster than a slower one. Similarly, a player with a stronger shot will propel the ball at a higher velocity than a player with less power.

It's crucial to understand which skills are involved in various actions, so you, as a manager, can strategically plan your play style and lineup.

Action	Skills involved	Notes
Control the ball	OVR and Concentration	Ball control, ranging from 0 to 1, predominantly hinges on the player's OVR rating. The OVR is leveraged to calculate the initial 0.9 through a logarithmic scale, with the remaining 0.1 contingent upon Concentration.
Dribble	Dribbling and Creativity	Dribbling contributes 75% of the skill ability.
Header	Heading and Strength	Heading contributes 85% of the skill ability.
Keeper catch	Handling, Reflexes, and Concentration	Reflexes contribute more as the shot is closer to the goalkeeper's goal. Handling and Reflexes contribute 85% of the skill ability.
Keeper dive	Diving, Reflexes, Positioning, and Strength	Reflexes contribute more as the shot is closer to the goalkeeper's goal. Positioning contributes more as the shot is farthest from the goalkeeper's goal. Diving, Reflexes, and Positioning contribute 85% of the skill ability.
Keeper pressure	Positioning and Concentration	Positioning contributes 85% of the skill ability.
Move/Walk	Speed
Pass (short)	Passing and Throwing (GK)	Throwing (GK) is used when the player acting as GK chooses to execute a short pass, whether or not they currently have the ball in their hands.
Pass (long)	Passing, Crossing, and Kicking (GK)	Crossing contributes more than Passing when the pass target is farthest from the ball. Kicking (GK) is used when the player acting as GK chooses to execute a long pass, whether or not they currently have the ball in their hands.
Pressure	Marking, Standing tackle, Strength, and Aggression	Marking and Standing tackle contribute 85% of the skill ability.
Shot	Finishing, Shooting, and Strength	Finishing contributes more than Shooting when the ball is in close proximity to the opponent’s goal area. Shooting contributes more than Finishing when the ball is farthest from the opponent’s goal area. Strength is used to determine the ball’s velocity once the player has taken a shot. Its impact is greater when the player is farthest from the opponent’s goal.
Slide	Sliding tackle, Strength, and Aggression	Sliding tackle contributes 85% of the skill ability.
Sprint	Speed

Notes:

Bravery and Punching (GK) are not being used. We will start using Bravery after implementing the concept of Moral. We have no plans on adding Punching in the short term (We’ll get there, eventually).
Fitness affects the rate at which a player loses energy. Fatigued players exhibit a slightly lower performance compared to fresh players.
Positioning, Reflexes (GK), and Vision play integral roles in the heuristics used to determine the player's actions and when computing the best pass target.