Description of issue
INTRO (There's a TL;DR at the end ;-))
Dear SI team,
Thanks again for your hard work and dedication to yet another iteration of Football Manager!
I've tried my best to contribute to this year's Beta by reporting issues that I haven't spotted in different threads.
Now, however, I want to talk about THE major issue that has been raised in a few other threads already, as it is even more pronounced than in any previous iteration.
The (lack of) difficulty of Football Manager 2024.
I have identified two different aspects that I want to discuss and where I'll try to give constructive ideas on how I think these could be fixed.
Realistically, I don't have as much insight into the codebase as you (the SI devs) have, but I want to share some ideas on how to fix the issues nonetheless.
This thread will focus on the "Player Morale" aspect of the issue.
I've opened another thread to talk about the "Tactics" aspect here:
CONTEXT
To test the lovely new features of this year's FM, I've started a new save game with Eintracht Frankfurt in the Bundesliga.
In case you're not too familiar with the Bundesliga: Frankfurt was expected to be a contender for EL/ECL spots, maybe even a CL spot, but then Kolo Muani left at the very last minute and Frankfurt hasn't been able to replace him adequately.
Realistically, achieving place 6-7 would be great, getting 3-5 would be overperforming and any finish 8-10 wouldn't be surprising.
As I wanted to focus on progressing quickly to see how well the new features work, I've handed over almost all tasks over to my staff.
I was only doing three things: Create a tactic at the start of the season, selecting players for the matchday and praising/criticising training and match performances.
At the end of the season, I finished first in the Bundesliga, scored 92 goals (without getting a Kolo Muani replacement by the DoF) and also won the UECL.
I did not lose a single game in 2024.
PROBLEM
It is a well-known fact that anyone other than Bayern winning the Bundesliga is almost to be considered a miracle.
Achieving this in the very first season with a team like Eintracht Frankfurt without ever changing the tactics or doing anything out of the ordinary is completely immersion-breaking and kills any motivation to continue playing.
Someone else reported a very similar issue here:
ROOT CAUSE #1
The player morale is a self-reinforcing loop (for human players). If players are praised or criticized according to a fixed set of rules (Praise >7.75 training / 7.5 match rating, criticize <6.4 training/rating),
their morale will be high and this leads to great training performances. Better performances further boost their morale, leading to even better game performances and more boosts.
This gives the player an unfair advantage over the AI and it doesn't really require any skill clicking on the correct button based on the value of one number.
PROPOSED SOLUTION
A quick fix would be removing this unfun busy-work of clicking buttons and linking the feedback to players to the stats of the coach.
A coach with good attributes in People Management, Motivating and Level of Discipline should have a higher chance of giving the players appropriate feedback.
This would remove the requirement to mass-click buttons, allow AI coachs to benefit from the same system, would give some coach types another set of unique strengths, and it would also make coach progression when starting on a lower level even better.
TL;DR
One reason the game is too easy is the self-reinforcing player morale loop when constantly praising and criticizing players based on a single number.
Could be fixed by simplifying the system, as clicking 20x "Praise Training" unenjoyable busywork anyway.
Instead, link it to attributes of the coachs and make it fair for AI and human coachs while also enabling certain coach types that are better at leading players.
Here is part 2:
Thanks again for thousands of hours of fun <3
Best regards
Svonn
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