Please, help us to establish rules.

by Zippo, Nov 7, 2022

Hey there,

In light of upcoming FM23 tactic testing, we need your suggestions how to deal with 'plagiarism' or should we?

It's obvious for everyone that the match engine hasn't seen any significant changes for many years and it's just impossible to come up with something really new and unique.

At this moment you can take any tactic and say: "Hey! This tactic looks almost exactly like "Super Tactic" tactic by my friend Bob, which he created for FM16/FM17/FM18/FM19/FM20/FM21/FM22 ( pick any number you like :)  ) but only with few minor changes added."

For instance, look at this tactic by @AlexJV - https://fm-arena.com/thread/2705-dbl-v1-4-4-2-wide-diamond/

The tactic looks to me like almost a copy of @ZaZ's Fire 1.0 or Blue 4.0 but with minor tweaks added and I think in this case @AlexJV should gives credit to @ZaZ for his work.

But I guess there could be a different point of view like: "Hey, it isn't an exact copy because I see there're few different player instructions so he has the full right to present it as his own work".

I also can understand if someone questions: "Why we would bother with that stuff at all? For god’s sake, it's just a game!". But just think that people spend their time and put their efforts on trying, testing things and sharing their results and it isn't cool at all when someone just takes their work making few insignificant changes and present it as his own work without giving proper credit.

To be honest, our team just don't have enough free time to compare tactics finding similarities and then make a decision on whether there's enough difference or not, that would be a colossal work to do and also it would be very subjective because there's no clearly criteria to define what the difference should be like.

So we need your suggestions how to handle that and until we find a convenient way to deal with that matter I'll be interfering only in cases when someone making an exact copy of someone else tactic.

Looking forward to your suggestions!

Cheers.

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Hey, i completly understand ur point, but i dont see how u could say my tactic is plagiat, it's just Wide Diamond with what we know has been working since FM21, so i dont really know what to tell u, if my tactic is a problem, just delete the post it's fine to me ! It's really hard to define plagiat for this kind of things, cause  almost everyone use the same type of "playstyle", we can also just copy something change 2 or 3 things in the on possession and off possession and u cannot tell if it's plagiat or not (edited my post with a link redirecting to ZaZ Fire)

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AlexJV said: Hey, i completly understand ur point, but i dont see how u could say my tactic is plagiat, it's just Wide Diamond with what we know has been working since FM21, so i dont really know what to tell u, if my tactic is a problem, just delete the post it's fine to me !

Hey,

As I said in the opening post, we aren't going to 'delete' anything or accuse you or anyone else until we find a convenient way to handle the matter and what's mostly important until we determine clear criteria to define what can be called 'plagiarism'.

Now, we're asking the FM community to help us with that.

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Don’t delete any tactics, especially if they’re adding something new. But I think crediting and properly referencing to the original tactic should be done and enforced. The community obviously can spot out when a tactic is very similar or used the same foundation as a previously successful tactic, the less successful ones don’t really matter.

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@Zippo I was sure we had this discussion last year.

FM22 Discussion

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Mark said: @Zippo I was sure we had this discussion last year.

FM22 Discussion


Yes, I remember that discussion but unfortunately, I don't find it offers any convenient way to handle the matter so we're still looking and open for suggestions.

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I think you could set up a rule, visible in a thread, that allows other users to say like "This tactic is too similar to this other one in this link. Please, give credits on your first post.". That would allow the community to self-moderate and fix the issue without additional work to your staff.

It's also important to define what "too similar" means, and I think anything that has only one or two smaller changes should fall in this category. More than that, then it starts becoming its own thing, but it also depends on the level of changes. For example:
- Changing set pieces should count as one change, no matter how many set pieces you changed.
- Changing player instructions should also count as one change, no matter how many players you change.
- Changing the position or role of symmetrical players should count as one change (like pulling both wingers up or down).
- Some instructions have way less influence than others. For example, changing the distribution type of the goalkeeper has way less weight than tempo or passing directness.

Anyway, it's about having some common sense and acknowledge the number of hours people spent to test tactics and find what works and what does not. For example, I have been testing tactics for 388 hours now in FM23 alone, during beta.

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ZaZ said: - Changing set pieces should count as one change, no matter how many set pieces you changed.

but what if someone comes with a corner or throw-ins exploit that boost the result by 30% or more? :)

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Bogeyman said: but what if someone comes with a corner or throw-ins exploit that boost the result by 30% or more? :)

If it's the only change from some tactic, then it's definitely a tweak. It would be technically testing new set pieces, and not a new tactic.

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Until we find a more sophisticated approach to the issue I suggest everyone to handle any 'plagiarism' issues the following way: if you think that someone uses your work without giving proper credit then try to reach that person via "Private Messages" and explain your concerns if you can't come to an agreement then create a thread in the following section - https://fm-arena.com/board/9-fair-play-commission/ explain the case and put it to the judgment of the FM community.

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I might be pretty new on the forum but i've followed those forums since ages, about this matter "plagiarism" is kinda hard to even try to handle it, i can understand the ego "oh guys i've runned test for 400 hours and a random guy came made some "tweaks" and now that tactic works stellar".
That's the risk by sharing something, I mean i saw on Knap's SI page there are tactic that even remind "your" blue 4.0 now we wanna call him a plagiarist? The guy to me create and test tactics like a tornado. I am pretty sure he went to a similar shape ages ago.
I am just pointing out to give you an example, for me what makes a tactic from decent to good or op are the Set pieces, roles and rules are significant but not that the same impact on it(ofc from my point of view).
I mean now you are using the less constrast(? no clue if that's the right word in english) rules etc, if toworrow those instruction become on "meta" what are you gonna do? check every tactic that used your intuition and ask for credits? It would be nice if people were correct and understanding your hard work but that's not gonna happen everytime.
What i am trying to say in few words that if you wanna work and release your play style be aware that people might follow it and after a process it's gonna be just a common thing aka (meta). But those things happens even in real life,i mean how many scouts tried to emulate the pep's soccer? Or Klopp's? Here we can just understand what you did by checking roles/rules/SP'S.
To me wasn't even correct to mention the guy that you had a "doubt" that he copied w/e you wanna call it because it's basically saying now "if you use something with 2 strikers 2 IWB and one SS is zaz's business". But that kind of behavior gonna just distance people from even share tactics at one point. I didn't check it personally but if set pieces are the same the roles are the same and he basically just "dropped" the wings is because your roles and rules become the Meta. Live with it or find another solution to protect your project i mean they created "copyrights for some reason i believe lads".


I didn't mean to offend none i just wanted to express my opinion on the matter.

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Delicious said: I might be pretty new on the forum but i've followed those forums since ages, about this matter "plagiarism" is kinda hard to even try to handle it, i can understand the ego "oh guys i've runned test for 400 hours and a random guy came made some "tweaks" and now that tactic works stellar".
That's the risk by sharing something, I mean i saw on Knap's SI page there are tactic that even remind "your" blue 4.0 now we wanna call him a plagiarist? The guy to me create and test tactics like a tornado. I am pretty sure he went to a similar shape ages ago.
I am just pointing out to give you an example, for me what makes a tactic from decent to good or op are the Set pieces, roles and rules are significant but not that the same impact on it(ofc from my point of view).
I mean now you are using the less constrast(? no clue if that's the right word in english) rules etc, if toworrow those instruction become on "meta" what are you gonna do? check every tactic that used your intuition and ask for credits? It would be nice if people were correct and understanding your hard work but that's not gonna happen everytime.
What i am trying to say in few words that if you wanna work and release your play style be aware that people might follow it and after a process it's gonna be just a common thing aka (meta). But those things happens even in real life,i mean how many scouts tried to emulate the pep's soccer? Or Klopp's? Here we can just understand what you did by checking roles/rules/SP'S.
To me wasn't even correct to mention the guy that you had a "doubt" that he copied w/e you wanna call it because it's basically saying now "if you use something with 2 strikers 2 IWB and one SS is zaz's business". But that kind of behavior gonna just distance people from even share tactics at one point. I didn't check it personally but if set pieces are the same the roles are the same and he basically just "dropped" the wings is because your roles and rules become the Meta. Live with it or find another solution to protect your project i mean they created "copyrights for some reason i believe lads".


I didn't mean to offend none i just wanted to express my opinion on the matter.


Fine, let's assume what you said is valid. Then you copy a tactic from a Korean website, make one slight change like "SK-Su -> SK-At", and rename it to "my wonderful tactic 300 points with PSG all titles", with a long text to describe how hard it was to discover such a good tactic. Would that be fair for the guy from Korean website? Would it cost much for you to simply say "I got inspiration from the tactic in this website"? Who is the one full of ego?

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ZaZ said: Fine, let's assume what you said is valid. Then you copy a tactic from a Korean website, make one slight change like "SK-Su -> SK-At", and rename it to "my wonderful tactic 300 points with PSG all titles", with a long text to describe how hard it was to discover such a good tactic. Would that be fair for the guy from Korean website? Would it cost much for you to simply say "I got inspiration from the tactic in this website"? Who is the one full of ego?

Well personally i don't even care about the matter, since i was a former MTG and MTGA deck creator this thing happen more then you believe there, and the hours you mention ain't not even 1/10 of it.
I actually totaly agree with you about they should mention it,but do you trully believe that everyone gonna do it? As someone mentioned there is a community and we are not that much playing the game compared to others game for many reason. I trully believe that if someone pop-up with your play-style or better copy-pasta tactic with just a tweak they gonna discovered it in no-time.

There isn't something like copyrights or digital signiture (i mean it would be just useless since i can just manually create a tactic as well from 0).

The tactic looks to me like almost a copy of ZaZ's Fire 1.0 or Blue 4.0 but with minor tweaks added and I think in this case AlexJV should gives credit to ZaZ for his work.

So, are we sure about it? or not? It's simple matter of facts. But the smartass way used was so wrong  and so pointless, just made a guy upset for no reason.

How are we gonna understand if someone copied or tweaked your work? 2 IWB on Attack 2 WINGS on SUPPORT 2 AF? 1 SS?
I mean whats the key to understand it? from the shape? set pieces? everything? so none is allowed to make something similar with those rules that gonna be considered your tactic tweak? So if we start from the ancient history of this game, we gonna face the fact that we are  just copying Knap's (i don't know others creators that are on meta more then you and him) and tweaking his work?
I won't got further because i coudln't make it any easier to understand what i am saying. Becuase if you trully believe you own the shape it's gonna be ridicolous, if you tell me you create the sp's i gonna trully believe it because i've read your posts and explanation about everything, but i am just trying to make it clear that to understand a "plagiarism" case is harder then you think.

And basically is up to the community and the player who did it to mention it.

The ego part wasn't refered to you at all, it was just an example,because it's not the first time i read something similar around the forums, and pretty sure you know it better then me tho.


Have fun to copy a tactic from koreans sites :P

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I think it's enough to just mention the inspiration in the opening post. Putting the name of the inspiration in the title or name of the tactic is up to the author, but not a must.

I also think tweaks don't need to set up the name of the author as the inspiration. For example, in this thread here, @MiZuki added me as author, while I think she should take credit for her creation. She was the one with the idea to mix the tactics, which could have led to some improvement, and it wouldn't be fair to credit it only to me.

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What do you mean by inspiration? If i see a tactic and i want to emulate the shape? or what?

Let's take my experience for example i am going trough a process to achieve what i did on fm22 on a tactic, but i got ispiration from Tuchel AI and after from Mr green that made a version for full elite teams, so i did the process to revamp every role, studying the meta roles/rules around the forums,set pieces are from his tactic (i didn't yet go trough that part of the game yet).

We share looking shape and sp's


Now from your point of view, it's considered a tweak?

At least we can undestand a point of view on the matter :)

Keep sometimes before to reply,because how you saw people pay attention when this kind of topic being discussed on public threads.

P.S.

I am mentioning him about set pieces already.

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Delicious said: What do you mean by inspiration? If i see a tactic and i want to emulate the shape? or what?

Let's take my experience for example i am going trough a process to achieve what i did on fm22 on a tactic, but i got ispiration from Tuchel AI and after from Mr green that made a version for full elite teams, so i did the process to revamp every role, studying the meta roles/rules around the forums,set pieces are from his tactic (i didn't yet go trough that part of the game yet).

We share looking shape and sp's


Now from your point of view, it's considered a tweak?

At least we can undestand a point of view on the matter :)

Keep sometimes before to reply,because how you saw people pay attention when this kind of topic being discussed on public threads.

P.S.

I am mentioning him about set pieces already.


You can see my definition of inspiration (or too close) in the link: https://fm-arena.com/find-comment/14963/

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Keep up the good work!

Gonna wait, those ispiration mentioning/credits and w/e you wanna call them :)

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