The mechanics of manager reputation

[Morridin]

Introduction

As I have been unable to find anything concrete on how manager reputation increases in this forum, I have decided to dedicate this thread to the underlying mechanics of manager reputation.

To do so I will be using FMM to explore hidden variables in the game, so if anybody doesn't want to know how these variables work you should stop reading now.

Hopefully an understanding of how the mechanism behind the partially hidden attribute "manager reputation" will be a great help to Career players, who want start on the bottom of the food chain and eventually winning the CL with Real Madrid (or something like that) plan their career, and/or help them develop an understanding of what will be required to be eligible for a manager job at a certain club.

Basics first...

Manager Reputation is a partially hidden attribute in FM. If you read your own manager screen you can see your reputation described as one of the following:

1. Unproven
2. Regional
3. National
4. Continental
5. World Class

AI managers cannot be Unproven, they are either of Obscure or Local rep instead.
These labels are actually simple categorizations of a hidden variable called Current Reputation that goes from 0 - 10000. These labels also depend on the nationality of your current or last played league, so you can have unproven reputation in England and change to national reputation if you take a job in Malaysia without your reputation actually changing.

The game engine differs between "Home Reputation", "Current Reputation" and "World Reputation".
As I understand these Variables "Home Reputation" is your reputation with teams of the same nationality as you (Possibly secondary nationality as well, needs testing). "Current Reputation" seems to be a short term variable and as mentioned it governs your ingame reputation label (among other things that are not quite clear at this point). While I think "World Reputation" is your reputation with all clubs excluded from the "Home Reputation" category, I'll admit I am not yet completely certain of how it works.

When you apply for a job the game compares your reputation to the clubs reputation and if your reputation is equal or greater to that of the club you might get the job. Which of the two reputations the game uses for this comparison depends on your managers nationality. If the club has the same nationality as you the game uses "Home reputation", if not it uses "World reputation" (Testing implies that it's not actually quite this simple, updates will come). When you apply for a national job your chance of getting it is a function of Current and World reputation combined.

Your starting reputation scores depend on your starting difficulty. These scores ranges from 0 to 10000 and are completely independent of nationality, age or Starting Club. The difficulty levels give you the following scores:

1. International Fotballer, "Home Reputation", 8000, "World Reputation", 4000

2. Professional Fotballer, "Home Reputation", 6000, "World Reputation", 3000

3. Semi-Professional Fotballer, "Home Reputation", 3250, "World Reputation", 1625

4. Sunday League Fotballer, "Home Reputation", 1500, "World Reputation", 750

5. Automatic, This one depends on the reputation of the lowest playing league in your game. Values range from 500, 250 (Lowest league in the world) to 9500, 4750 (Spanish First). It's completely independent of nationality, age or Starting Club. Proven by testing.

To give you some reference Man Utd has a starting reputation of 9250, Q.P.R. has 4750 and Scarborough has 1750.

As I said before these values fall into different categories in-game, Unproven - World Class, depending on what country you currently or last played in. Starting as a Sunday league footballer I would have Unproven reputation in England, Regional in Norway and National in Malaysia at the start of the game. Just try starting three managers with each of these nationalities and you will see that it's true. Reported reputation values in FMM is the same for all three though. If now my Norwegian manager got the job of Malaysian team Melaka his reputation label would change from regional to national, without any value change in FMM, and this label would stick with him when he resigns until he gets another job.

The important thing to draw from this is that your in-game label depends on your current, or last played, league. A national reputation in England is worth more than in Malaysia. This seems to be linked to the nations reputation, but exactly what variable governs it is not of great importance as long as we know roughly how it works.

Reputation can change after every match

Testing has shown that the outcome of every match you play, even friendlies, can change your manager reputation either positively or negatively. The amount of reputation change you get depends on what the game predicts your chance of winning the match is.
My first preliminary draft at an equation looks like this:

"Predicted goal difference" - "Actual goal difference" = "change in reputation" Given the win is greater than predicted for the favorite, or the outcome (Win, draw loss) better than predicted for the opposition.

It's not actually this simple, but this equation will give you the general idea. It means that the favorite team has to win by more that a certain goal margin for their manager to gain any reputation, if they win by less nothing happens. If they don't win, their manager will actually lose reputation, so it pays to live up to the expectations. Alternately, the outcome has to be better than predicted for the opposition for their manager to gain reputation, but even a draw will see them gain. The size of these increases or decreases depends on the match odds. The more unlikely the outcome the bigger the reputation change. The game predicts the result based on each clubs reputation and home advantage, and sets the odds accordingly.

It follows from these observations that winning many matches with a low reputation club, against more reputable clubs, is a relatively quick way to gain manager reputation. This also holds true for friendlies, so you can use this to your advantage by planning these accordingly. If you need to generate cash for your club, and thus play friendlies against big teams, it might be a good idea to let your assistant handle the match (unless you think you can win or draw the match of course.), as you will not lose reputation if your assistant loses the game. Alternately you can play away games against teams you expect to beat to build your own reputation (+morale), the more reputable the team you beat the bigger reputation increase you get.

It also follows from this that the players you should prioritize first when spending your transfer budget are Strikers, Goalies and Central defenders, in that order. The reason for this is that you absolutely need players who knows how to score and players who reduce the amount of goals you recede, as every goal counts towards your reputation. Somebody else can tell you what stats these player should have, but I find that exceptional Pace and Acceleration (Off the ball helps a lot too) are key for strikers in the lower divisions.

If you want to start low and increase your reputation fast get a national job as soon as possible. Most international matches are probably worth up to 20 times more than friendlies to your reputation.

[Morridin]

I am a fan of journeyman games. The thought of starting at the bottom and working your way to the top appeals to me very much. However, working your way up can be a tedious and time consuming experience for any of us. For different reasons we might want to change turf in the game, just to find that none of the teams we thought ourselves qualified to play for would even consider hiring us.

This is exactly what happened in my current game. I started as a 29 year old manager with Norwegian nationality, Sunday league experience and No job. After a few weeks I got a job at Norwegian second division side Modum, which gave me a contract worth 300 pounds a week, Wage budget of 4K and no Transfer budget. Modum was at the time a semi-professional team, worth roughly 45k (100k debt at start), predicted to lose the division. It did have relatively good facilities though, average training and adequate youth, which was the main reason I accepted the job.

I did a complete overhaul of the team, fired all my current staff and hired new ones. Gave the players I could be bothered to keep full time contracts, and fired or sold the rest. The first season went relatively well considering the media prediction and my violent upheaval of the teams foundations of players and staff. After having sniffed around mid-table for most of the season we finished 10th (of 14), just above relegation, after a slump at the end of the season. I was confident that the second season would go much better though, after my new players and staff had some time to gel together, and especially after I got Premier Division side Stab?k as my new parent team.

In the second season I was able to Loan a fast striker and a Left Winger from Stab?k, paying 0% of their wages, for a whole year. These two were considered my two best players by all my staff, and the striker would indeed end up as the leagues top scorer and top rated player, while the winger would have most assists. Having also signed a quite decent captain (20 inf, 12 det) things might be starting to get a little better I thought. During the first season I had managed to get rid of the 100 K debt and by the end of this season I would have 250K in the bank. All this time I had managed to keep my wages about 1k below the limit set by the board (despite it just being 4k to begin with), so my board was very pleased with me. A big reason that I managed to do this was by arranging lots of friendlies with Rosenborg (Top club of Norway), which would net me a ticket income of about 20k each game. Might not be realistic that the club would agree to multiple friendlies in real life, but you need all the help you can get in the lower leagues...

The second season went incredibly well considering the last seasons result and odds of 150-1 against me winning the league. The 10 First games saw me in second place, with something like 6 wins, 2 evens and 2 losses I think. Unfortunately newly relegated team Nybergsund was almost unbeatable. Despite my keeper conceding least goals in the league, by a good margin, Nybergsund was 8 points ahead of me with only 3 matches left of the season. I would have to win the league to get promoted. By bidding on their best players earlier I had seen to it that they were snatched up by bigger clubs, so they had lost part of their teams backbone towards the end of the season. They were beginning to slump in results and I had incredibly managed to fight through a slump mid-season and was currently on a winning streak. Could it hold though? Nybergsund would only need 1 point in their last three matches unless i was able to win all my matches by big margins. It should be impossible.

What happened next was like watching a miracle. Nybergsund lost their first match in 10 rounds 2-3 while my boys banged in the biggest win of the season 6-0! Next I faced the leagues nr 3 while Nybergsund faced the third to last team of the league. I went into this maxt with little to no hope as Nybergsund would surely win against such a poor team. My boys did their job and won 4-1, but when I checked the results of the other matches I saw that Nybergsund had actually lost 1-3! Now my goal difference was equal to Nybergsund, so they would actually have to win their last game to be certain of promotion. Luckily I faced the jumbo team of the league for my last match and won comfortably 3-0. Nybergsund however was facing the team I had just beat 6-0, surely they would win... I could not believe my eyes when I saw that they had actually lost 0-3 to the team that I had just beaten 6-0. Nybergsund rounded of the season incredibly poor and got stuck in second division, while I won the league by 1 point and got promoted to first division. There must have been quite a bit of head bashing going on in the Nybergsund board room after that. :delighted:

However, when my board learned that we had got promoted they did what must have been one of the most idiotic economic decisions I have ever heard of. In their ecstasy they took up a loan of 4.8 million pounds to build a new stadium! At the time the club was 250k in the green, and I had only earned 350k in total over the last 2 years. The club was immediately declared bankrupt, went into receivership, and those bastards started selling of my players for next to nothing.

This naturally de-motivated me a lot from taking on another season with this team, as I could see no immediate solution to the clubs economic problem. I would probably be unable to retain good players for any period of time, let alone buy any players, and as a result of all this I would probably be relegated. On top of this Stab?k had just been relegated to the same division as me, so they would no longer be my parent club. Prospects were grim indeed. Thus I wanted to change turf, but I soon discovered that this wasn't as easy as I had expected (Seeing as I had won the starting league and a promotion, with a team predicted to lose the league, after all). That was when I decided to start investigating the mechanisms behind manager reputation.

As my only other alternative now was to go back to another team in the second division I decided to try and rough it out with Modum for another season. My salary had gone up to 500? by now btw. Luckily I was able to get another big team as a parent club, and through sheer force of persistence I was able to loan 5 players from them for a year without paying any wages. I was also able to loan my best striker from last season again, plus a midfielder from another club. 6 of these loaned players would form the backbone of a team that I hoped would be able to fight of relegation. I was aware that this tactic was not going to be very good in the long run, but hopefully it would work long enough for me to get a better job. I had been unable to loan any good Central Defenders though, so this season would see a lot of goals on both sides of the pitch. In the end I finished 9th of 16, with 41 points and 47 goals, which I thought was great all considering, but not anywhere near promotion though as the winner (my previous parent club) won the league with 76 points and 74 goals (nearly twice as much as me). On the financial side the board started to show some sense in July, having blamed me for their loan extravaganza all season those (colorful language)! They started investing money in the club at non-regular intervals, and although no investment was greater than 400k they started adding up, so that by the end of the season the clubs debt was reduced from 4.8 mill to 1.5 mill.

Still unable to get a decent job, I decided to stick with Modum for one last season to try to get some data. My strategy was the same as last season, loads of loaners and friendlies against the top teams of Norway, plus I finally managed to sign my top Striker from the two previous seasons to the club, after he was fired by Stab?k. Club debt was down to 0.7 mil by the season change, and I had managed to put together a better all round team than last year. Maybe this season wasn't going to be as bad as I expected.

After a very good start i was among the top five, but I soon came to the conclusion that I would never get the data I needed at this pace, plus I had really grown tired of Modum. Therefore I decided to do some result fixing this season in order to shed some light on my current hypotheses. I will not go into great detail of this, my fourth season with Modum. Suffice to say that I ended up winning the league and the cup. When the club wanted to renew my contract i rejected all their offers, they would have been doomed to relegation next season even if I wanted to manage them anymore, and went job hunting when my contract expired.

I now wanted to move to the continent, preferably to England, to get a fresh start and some new challenges (plus to get more data). The Norwegian leagues end in October however and my contract expired in December. A few clubs became available in December, but I didn't get any of them. As soon as my contract expired I went on vacation with the apply for jobs option active. I only got offered a few sh*tty jobs that I rejected, and thus went half a year. I was starting to loose hope when at the start of the English season I was offered the job at newly relegated Coca Cola 2 side Hartlepool. I graciously accepted, and thus began my career in England.

Hartlepool had been a steady runner in Coca Cola league 1 for many years and most of my players where great at this level, so it must have been a total fluke that saw them relegated. It would seem that I had just struck gold.

[Morridin]

Starting variables and applying for jobs

I have done some experiments to try to discover how the different manager reputation variables work. My main working hypothesis has been that when you apply for a job the game compares your reputation to that of the club, and if your reputation is equal or better you would get the job.

However, it's not as simple as Manager reputation > Club Reputation = You get the job.

The most straightforward variable seems to be "Home reputation". If you home reputation is grater than the clubs reputation you would usually get the job, given club has same nation. If this variable only applies to clubs of your nationality it could explain why people report that Nationality has an effect on reputation, even though my data proves that nationality does not change the variables in any way.

It doesn't seem quite as easy as "Home rep" applies to certain clubs and "World rep" applies to the rest though. I have not found any data to contradict my theory of the "Home reputation" variable, but I have found plenty of data to contradict my assumption about "World rep".

In this experiment I created 4 Norwegian managers in the same game at the same point in time, one for each of the difficulty levels except Automatic (I will be ignoring this difficulty level from now on, as my testing has proven that the only thing that changes it is what your least reputable playable league is). In contradiction to my "World reputation" hypothesis I found that my manager with 8000 home rep and 4000 world rep got the available coventry job, while Coventry has a reputation of 4850. 4850 > 4000 obviously, so it's not as simple as I originally thought. It could be that Home reputation applies to all countries in the same continent as your home country, but my second manager with 6000, 3000 was rejected for the Southampton job, while Southamptons reputation is 5500. 6000 > 5500 so this hypothesis doesn't seem to work either.

To further confuse things my 8000, 4000 character got the Ukrainian National job, reputation 6000, and my 3250, 1625 character got the Nigerian national job, reputation 5500!. Seems like national teams follow their own set of rules.

Hopefully we will be able to make sense of these thing as more data turns up.


Reputation changes from friendly matches

For this experiment I played a friendly match at home with Modum (Rep 2185) against the third best Norwegian team Brann (Rep 5554), the match odds were 9-1 (home), 4-1 (even) and 1-4 (away) in favor of Brann.

I found that the following results gave me the following changes in reputation afterwards (Sorted by goal difference):

Modum 5 - 1 Brann, +7 Home rep, +7 Current rep, no change for world rep.
Modum 2 - 2 Brann, +2 Home rep, +2 Current rep, no change for world rep.
Modum 2 - 3 Brann, No change
Modum 0 - 2 Brann, No change
Modum 0 - 4 Brann, -1 Home rep, -1 current rep, -1 World rep.
Modum 1 - 6 Brann -2 Home rep, -2 Current rep, -1 World rep.
Modum 0 - 6 Brann, -3 Home rep, -3 Current rep, -1 World rep.
Modum 0 - 10 Brann, -7 Home rep, -7 Current rep, -1 World rep.

From these data I draw that the game predicts the favorite to win by a certain goal difference and sets a threshold there. If the favorite wins by this threshold or less nothing happens, if the difference is greater the manager of the favorite team gains reputation points at the cost of the other manager. Each goal the result differs from the predicted threshold represents either 1 point gained or one point lost for each of the managers (unless the favorite wins, which seems to prevent gain for the other manager). In this case the threshold seems to be between 2 or 3 goals in favor of Brann. Why two thresholds and not one? It's tempting to guess that the game calculates the difference by dividing the reputation of the favorite club with the oppositions reputation. In this case that would mean 5554/2185 which equals 2.54, as you can see quite in the middle of 2 or 3 goals.

This equation does not incorporate home advantage though, so the equation might have more to do with the odds, but then again you would usually play roughly as many home as away matches during a season so it should even out in the long run. 4-1 in favor of Brann is a margin of three goals, but that doesn't explain why a 2 goal margin would be counted as a no change score. More data will be required to fine tune the equation. But for now a seemingly satisfactory equation could be "Predicted goal difference" - "Actual goal difference" = "change in reputation." Given the win is greater than predicted for the favorite, or the outcome (Win, draw loss) better than predicted for the opposition. If this number is positive the favorite manager would lose this much reputation, if it's negative he would gain this much reputation. The opposite holds true for the other manager. This equation predicts that if a draw is the favored result either manager would gain or lose the goal difference as if the equation had no given condition.

World reputation behaves unlike the other two variables, but I'll leave it until I get more of an idea what it does.

If you let your assistant handle the match you get no change to reputation.


Pinning the reputation change equation

Game 1:

Modum (Player, Rep 2416, home) VS Rosenborg (Computer, Rep 5018, away), Friendly game

Player manager1 (Modum) reputation: Home: 2629, Current: 2607, World: 1266

Match odds: Modum: 13-2, Draw: 11-4, Rosenborg: 2-5 (Fav)

Modum 0-7 Rosenborg, -5,-5,-1
Modum 0-4 Rosenborg, -1,-1,-1
Modum 0-3 Rosenborg, No change
Modum 2-3 Rosenborg, No change
Modum 0-0 Rosenborg, +1,+1
Modum 1-0 Rosenborg, +4,+4
Modum 3-0 Rosenborg, +7,+7
Modum 8-0 Rosenborg, +7,+7

It seems like 7 is the biggest amount the reputation variables can increase from one single friendly match, as I didn't get a bigger increase by winning 8-0 than by winning 3-0. The changes does not seem to be quite as linear as I originally thought, but the equation still gives you the general idea. Interestingly the gain was smaller for a draw here than in the Modum-Brann match, possibly this was because the odds were better for a draw in this game, 11-4 (2.75-1) compared with 4-1.

Game 2:

Modum (Player, Rep 2416, away) VS Brann (Computer, Rep 5476, home), Friendly game

Player manager1 (Modum) reputation: Home: 2629, Current: 2607, World: 1266
Player manager2 (Brann) reputation: Home: 3250, Current: 3250, World: 1625

Match odds: Brann: 1-8 (Fav), Draw: 5-1, Modum: 12-1

Modum 0-4 Brann, Manager 1: -1,-1,-1. Manager 2: +2,+2, 0.
Modum 4-7 Brann, Manager 1: No change.
Modum 1-2 Brann, Manager 1: No Change. Manager 2: No change.
Modum 0-0 Brann, Manager 1: +2,+2,0. Manager 2: -1,-1,-1.
Modum 2-1 Brann, Manager 1: +7,+7,0. Manager 2: -3,-3,-1.
Modum 4-2 Brann, Manager 1: +7,+7,0. Manager 2: -3,-3,-1.
Modum 4-0 Brann, Manager 1: +7,+7,0. Manager 2: -8,-8,-1.

A pattern seems to be emerging. It seems like the biggest you can loose any match without a reputation loss is by 3 goals, as there was no difference in threshold value in either of my three matches so far (1-4, 2-5 and 1-8). The biggest increase you can get from a draw seems to be 2, as there was only 1 point difference between odds of 5-1 and  11-4 (2.75-1), still to early to say anything certain about this though. Your potential gain from winning against superior opposition seems to be highly correlated to the odds, as a 1 goal win gave a 4 point increase at odds of 13-2 while it gave 7 points at odds of 12-1 (which makes sense, as the odds is nearly twice as bad.).

Game 3:

Modum (Player, Rep 2416, Home) VS Brann (Computer, Rep 5476, away), Friendly game

Player manager1 (Modum) reputation: Home: 2629, Current: 2607, World: 1266
Player manager2 (Brann) reputation: Home: 3250, Current: 3250, World: 1625

Match odds: Modum: 7-1, Draw: 3-1, Brann: 1-3 (Fav)

Modum 0-4 Brann, (e), Manager 1: No change. Manager 2: +3,+3, 0. (pinned back, they dominated, 50%, 0-4)
Modum 1-3 Brann, (a), Manager 1: No change. Manager 2: +1,+1, 0. (near total domination)
Modum 1-3 Brann, (e), Manager 1: No change. Manager 2: +2,+2, 0. (had by far the better of the match and eased through, 50%)
Modum 1-3 Brann, Manager 1: No change. Manager 2: +2,+2, 0.
Modum 0-2 Brann, (a), Manager 1: No change. Manager 2: +1,+1, 0. (Near total domination, coasted through, 54%)
Modum 1-2 Brann, (a), Manager 1: No change. Manager 2: +1,+1, 0. (Could and should have scored more, dominate game, 54%, 1-1)
Modum 2-3 Brann, (a), Manager 1: No change. Manager 2: +1,+1, 0. (Could and should have scored more, dominate game, 54%, 0-0)
Modum 2-3 Brann, (h), Manager 1: No change. Manager 2: +1,+1, 0. (Good display, both side had chances, 52%, 2-1)
Modum 3-4 Brann, (h), Manager 1: No change. Manager 2: No Change. (entertaining, 51%)
Modum 0-0 Brann, Manager 1: +2,+2,0. Manager 2: -1,-1,-1.
Modum 1-1 Brann, (a), Manager 1: +2,+2,0. Manager 2: No Change. (massive superiority, 58%)
Modum 1-1 Brann, Manager 1: +2,+2,0. Manager 2: No Change.
Modum 2-2 Brann, Manager 1: +2,+2,0. Manager 2: No Change.
Modum 2-2 Brann, (a), Manager 1: +2,+2,0. Manager 2: No Change. (superiority, 53%)

First thing to note here is that the odds are more in my favor than the last time I played Brann at home. I accredit this to the fact that my clubs reputation increased from 2185 to 2416 after the season change, while Brann had their reputation decreased from 5554 to 5476. The ratio difference (5476/2416=2.27) is quite a bit better than it was before (5554/2185=2.54). This seems a plausible explanation for the change of odds in my favor I think.

It's becoming increasingly clear to me that this calculation is quite more complex than I originally thought.
As you can see I lost 0-4 this time without any change in reputation, both the times I played Brann before (with worse odds) and lost by the same score I also lost reputation. I am going to gather some more data from this match before I try to analyze it further, but any input would be appreciated.


Reputation Changes over time

For this experiment I created 3 unemployed Malaysian managers, one with International reputation, 70 yers old, one with professional reputation, 50 years old and one with semi-professional reputation, 30 years old. I had only the three spanish leagues running to make this go faster.

Immediately after creation I sent all three of them on a 5 year long holiday and let the game alone to work it's way through the years. After five years I checked their reputation values in FMM and the results were unanimous. Time alone does not change reputation. This is given that going on holiday does not make you immune to reputation change, but I can't see why it logically would.

So I would say it's safe to falsify hypothesis 6, based on these data.


Ingame Reputation Labels

I have done some testing to uncover which of the three reputation variables govern the ingame reputation label. For these experiments I created a Manager with English nationality, International footballer reputation, and he took charge of Arsenal. I changed all the reputation variables in realtime with FMM and checked the Label changes ingame straight away. These are the data I found:

Data set 1: (uncovering English reputation label thresholds)

(home),(current),(world) = (ingame label)

10000,10000, 5000 = World Class
  8000, 8000, 4000 = Continental
  6000, 6000, 3000 = National
  4000, 4000, 2000 = Regional
  3000, 3000, 1500 = Regional
  2750, 2750, 1375 = Unproven
  2500, 2500, 1250 = Unproven
  2000, 2000, 1000 = Unproven

From these data we get a general idea of what the threshold values of each individual reputation label are. Interestingly it appears that you cannot have Local or Obscure reputation when managing in england. At least not when only managing the Premiere division.

Data set 2: (Uncovering the reputation label variable)

(home),(current),(world) = (ingame label)

10000,10000,      0 = World Class
10000,      0,10000 = Unproven
      0,10000,10000 = World Class
      0,10000,      0 = World class
      0,  3000,      0 = Regional
10000, 2750,10000 = Unproven

From these data we can conclude that the only variable that affect your ingame reputation label is Current Reputation.

Data set 3: (applying for the Nigerian national job)

(home),(current),(world) = (response to application)

10000,10000,10000 = Got the job right away
10000,10000,      0 = No answer after a month
10000,      0,10000 = No answer after a month
      0,10000,10000 = Got the job right away

It appears from these data that the your chances of getting a national job is a function of your Current reputation and your world reputation combined. Neither of these maxed out by it self was enough to instantly bag the job. Home reputation seems to have no effect. For the record Nigeria had a reputation of 5500 and started the game without a manager.


Comparing a friendly to a league game

In this experiment I wished to compare a friendly and a league game with the same match odds to see if I could determine just what effect competition reputation plays in the reputation equation. To achieve this I played a friendly against my first league opponent just one week before the season started. Here are the data from the two matches:

Game1

Randaberg (Player, Rep 3025, Home) VS Modum (Player, Rep 2416, away), Friendly game

Player manager1 (Randaberg) reputation: Home: 3250, Current: 3250, World: 1625
Player manager2 (Modum) reputation: Home: 2631, Current: 2609, World: 1266

Match odds: Randaberg: 4-6 (Fav), Draw: 9-4, Modum: 7-2

Randaberg 7-0 Modum, Manager 1: +2,+2, 0. Manager 2: -5,-5,-1.
Randaberg 9-5 Modum, Manager 1: +1,+1, 0. Manager 2: No Change. (Modum 2 red)
Randaberg 5-1 Modum, Manager 1: +3,+3, 0. Manager 2: -2,-2,-1.
Randaberg 6-3 Modum, Manager 1: +1,+1, 0. Manager 2: No Change.
Randaberg 5-4 Modum, Manager 1: No Change Manager 2: No Change.
Randaberg 3-2 Modum, Manager 1: No Change Manager 2: No Change.
Randaberg 2-1 Modum, Manager 1: No Change Manager 2: No Change.
Randaberg 1-0 Modum, Manager 1: No Change Manager 2: No Change.
Randaberg 1-1 Modum, Manager 1: -2,-2,-1. Manager 2: +1,+1, 0.
Randaberg 0-1 Modum, Manager 1: -4,-4,-1. Manager 2: +4,+4, 0.
Randaberg 1-2 Modum, Manager 1: -4,-4,-1. Manager 2: +5,+5, 0.
Randaberg 2-3 Modum, Manager 1: -5,-5,-1. Manager 2: +5,+5, 0.
Randaberg 0-2 Modum, Manager 1: -8,-8,-1. Manager 2: +7,+7, 0.
Randaberg 1-5 Modum, Manager 1: -8,-8,-1. Manager 2: +7,+7, 0.

Game2

Randaberg (Computer, Rep 3025, Home) VS Modum (Player, Rep 2416, away), Norwegian first division (rep 7)

Computer manager1 (Randaberg) reputation: Home: 3236, Current: 3236, World: 1657
Player manager2 (Modum) reputation: Home: 2636, Current: 2614, World: 1266

Match odds: Randaberg: 4-6 (Fav), Draw: 9-4, Modum: 7-2

Randaberg 7-0 Modum, Manager 1: +5,+5,+2. Manager 2:-10,-10,-2.
Randaberg 7-2 Modum, Manager 1: +4,+4,+2. Manager 2: -6,-6,-1.
Randaberg 4-0 Modum, Manager 1: +3,+3,+2. Manager 2: -1,-1,+2.
Randaberg 2-0 Modum, Manager 1:  0, 0,+1. Manager 2:  0, 0,+3.
Randaberg 2-0 Modum, Manager 1: +1,+1,+1. Manager 2:  0, 0,+3.
Randaberg 3-2 Modum, Manager 1:  0, 0,+1. Manager 2:  0, 0,+3.
Randaberg 2-1 Modum, Manager 1:  0, 0,+1. Manager 2:  0, 0,+3.
Randaberg 1-0 Modum, Manager 1:  0, 0, 0. Manager 2:  0, 0,+3.
Randaberg 0-0 Modum, Manager 1: -2,-2,+1. Manager 2: +4,+4,+4.
Randaberg 2-3 Modum, Manager 1: -9,-9, 0. Manager 2: +10,+10,+4.
Randaberg 2-3 Modum, Manager 1:-11,-11,-1.Manager 2: +11,+11,+4.
Randaberg 0-2 Modum, Manager 1:-14,-14,-1.Manager 2: +16,+16,+4.
Randaberg 1-3 Modum, Manager 1:-15,-15,-1.Manager 2: +14,+14,+4.

Notice that the match odds of the two games are equal and that the game is played in the same arena both times, so the only changed factor between these matches are the competition (Friendly, rep 1, VS. Norwegian First Division, rep 7). Competition reputation definitely has an effect, as the reputation changes are significantly bigger in the league game and the limit to the reputation change size is higher. Just how the reputation factors into the equation however is difficult to say. It's not a simple multiplication or addition to the numbers from the friendlies, but simple graph analysis of the numbers do suggest that it multiplies the result in some way. The size of the changes seem to rise exponentially the more unlikely the result, whereas the most likely results see no change from competition rep.
These observations refer to the variables Home and Current rep in this case, World rep is a chapter to itself. As I have noted before world rep can only change negatively from friendlies, and only marginally at that. This does not hold true for league games apparently, it was in fact very difficult for the Modum manager not to increase his world rep, as he had to lose by at least 5 goals not to do so. I will not speculate too much why this is at this point, but it seems like it is enough just to play against a more reputable team to gain reputation. Furthermore it is becoming clearer and clearer that there is another factor in the equation besides Comp rep, goal difference and odds. This factor does not seem to be of critical importance, as it has only accounted for differences of max 2 points so far, but it becomes very difficult to analyze the data until it is identified.

Manager reputation and signing players

For this experiment I Created a Norwegian manager with rep scores of 500,500,250 who took the helm at Fulham. I the did a player search and asked my assistant to filter out unrealistic targets. I took a screenshot of the players that came up, retired my manager, created a new one with scores of 8000, 8000, 4000 and repeated the procedure.

The results where clear: Manager reputation do affect what players you can sign.

When I compared the two lists there where clear differences. The first manager was able to hire 53361 players, while the second manager could chose from 54165 players. Considering the fact the the two managers was at both their extremes reputation wise, and that manager 2 only could hire 804 more players than manager 1 (1.5% more), this effect is not that great. Among the 22 most valuable players manager 2 only had 3 more players than manager 1 to chose from.


Hypotheses

These have been my most important working hypotheses during my experiments. Part of the reason I list them is that I would like input from you, particular on the unresolved ones. I have also listed instructions on how to check those. If you want to double check my findings and tell me that I'm wrong please do so. That's the way science moves forward.

Hypothesis 1. You get a boost to reputation after you play your last match of a league or a tournament. (Falsified)

You do indeed get a boost to your reputation if you either Win or get promoted in your current league. This boost does not necessarily come at the last day of the season however. You get it with the message that your team has won the league or got promoted. By winning the Norwegian first division my Reputation scores increased from 2765, 2738 and 1410 to 4061, 4034 and 2190, which makes for increases of 1296, 1296 and 780. To get a boost from a Cup or tournament you apparently have to reach the final. By losing the semi-final of the Norwegian Cup I did not get any reputation, but by losing the final my rep scores increased by 442, 441 and 231. By winning the Cup I got increases of 757, 756 and 463, which roughly gives you a ratio of 3-5 (Loose - Win).

Hypothesis 2.  Manager reputation increases according to league result at end of season. (Verified, given that the result is sufficiently good.)

You have to either win or get promoted in the lower divisions, premiere division haven't been tested yet.

Hypothesis 3. The size of these reputation increases depend on the reputation of the league. (Falsified?)

I would say that this was falsified for certain except there is a genuine possibility that the League increases I got was the sum of a winning boost and a promotion boost. At least you cannot compare winning a league to winning a cup.

Hypothesis 4. Reputation can change from match to match, depending on result and opposition. (Verified, preliminary equation)

Preliminary equation: "Predicted goal difference" - "Actual goal difference" = "change in reputation" Given the win is greater than predicted for the favorite, or the outcome (Win, draw loss) better than predicted for the opposition.

I have done some testing on this and reputation can indeed change after a single match, magnitude of change depends on result and opposition. I also have to retract my previous statement about friendlies not affecting reputation as my data have proven that they can indeed significantly affect manager reputation (Though not club reputation). If you let your assistant handle the match it has no effect on your reputation. I have not yet had a chance to test this in a league, so if anybody does it before me please post results here so we can compare data. You need to include the reputation of both teams and the betting odds of the match, In addition to manager reputation variables of course.

Hypothesis 5. Home reputation also applies to secondary nationality teams.

Another easy one, just create a manager with a secondary nationality and apply for jobs in your secondary country.

Hypothesis 6. Reputation declines over time. (Falsified)

Testing has shown that time alone does not change reputation at all over a time period of five years. The only thing that's still uncertain is whether going on holiday makes you immune to reputation change, but pending data that proves this is so I declare this hypothesis falsified.

I would greatly appreciate your input on these hypotheses, especially input which leads to new testable hypotheses, and/or verifies/falsifies the current hypotheses. Or if you doubt my results feel free to try to replicate them and post here to tell me I'm wrong. All credit will be duly given in the main threads to those who contributes to changing it's contents.

Credit so far:

Vertanno, for his data contribution and for pointing out that only AI managers can have Obscure and Local reputations.

[KingJack]

Whoooa, interesting read, I'm going to have to look over that again and post a better response

[Vertanno]

An analysis of manager reputation is certainly something untouched throughout the FM community, let alone in this detail.

As far as I know reputation affects:

Buying players/attracting players, contracts, success with fans/players/board in every aspect, making managerial friends and the tactics of your oppisition.

The last one is debatable but nevermind. I too like a journyman game, but never find the endurance to really 'see it out'.

Great guide Morridin, a lot of people will find it helpful and hopefully this will be on the main site.

[Dinko13]

Malaysian team Malaka

lol look up the word malaka in a greek dictionary if you don't know it yet.

[redfox211]

Too many words and sometimes i don't really get what you are saying... But good guide anyway. Maybe it's because i dont get it, others may though.

[Sean88888]

The actual spelling is Melaka. I dunno if thats the spelling they use in FM but thats the real spelling. great guide.

[Morridin]

Too many words and sometimes i don't really get what you are saying...

I agree, maybe I should have segmented it more to make it more easily accessible...? Most of the text is first draft, although I have taken some time to write it more clearly than it originally was. Feel free to point out any bit you don't get though, as I'm sure parts of this could be written better. The lingo I use is a fairly basic scientific one (e.g. Verify or falsify). I thought it would be easily understandable, but then again I'm not a good judge of this so tell me if you think anything needs clarification.

The actual spelling is Melaka. I dunno if thats the spelling they use in FM but thats the real spelling. great guide.

Typo there, thanks for pointing it out.

As far as I know reputation affects:

Buying players/attracting players, contracts, success with fans/players/board in every aspect, making managerial friends and the tactics of your oppisition.

Most of these are indeed areas affected by manager reputation. As a general rule, the more reputation you have the easier these things become. As far as I know (so far) none of these change the manager reputation variables though, so they will not be explored in great detail in this thread,

[mikedadude]

Mind if i post this on the main site?

[Morridin]

Mind if i post this on the main site?

It's not finished yet, but as long as we can update it later be my guest.

[redfox211]

Mind if i post this on the main site?

It's not finished yet, but as long as we can update it later be my guest.

I think just tell mike when you're done.

[vOnElith]

This is cool, so this means if u win every game 10 -0. You should be king of all kings : D And attract players like C.Ronaldo even to a club like Brentford? : D Let's just say if he's on free transfer or sth. : D

[Vertanno]

No because Ronaldo would also take into consideration his current clubs reputation(which would be a lot higher than brentfords anyway), the reputation of the league Brentford compete in and many more factors.

[Morridin]

This is cool, so this means if u win every game 10 -0. You should be king of all kings : D And attract players like C.Ronaldo even to a club like Brentford? : D Let's just say if he's on free transfer or sth. : D

No because Ronaldo would also take into consideration his current clubs reputation(which would be a lot higher than brentfords anyway), the reputation of the league Brentford compete in and many more factors.

Winning every game 10-0 will indeed give you a huge reputation boost in a relatively short space of time. This will help in signing players, but as Vertanno says players also take club reputation into consideration. Club reputation does not change from match to match, like manager reputation does (not for friendlies at least). The only time i have seen club reputation change, so far, was at the beginning of a new season. I suspect that the game calculates all your results from the last season in one go when you begin the new one. This, unfortunately makes discerning the effect of one single game immensely difficult, if not impossible.
However, if you keep winning all your games 10-0 I predict you'll soon enough be able to sign players like C.Ronaldo. Though I'll probably call you a cheater if you do.