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 "Tactics" aspect of the issue.
I've opened another thread to talk about the "Player Morale" 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 #2
While the introduction of positional play and all the other changes to the game engine look and feel amazing, it seems that they've made some already overpowered roles and playstyles even stronger.
In case you're not up to date with the FM23 "meta", someone recently posted this:
https://twitter.com/nocontextfm1/status/1701219040574763042
Which is just the tip of the iceberg, but gives a good summary.
In my save game, I used a fairly simple 4-2-2-2 with typical settings that worked well for me in FM23 (shorter passes, higher tempo, counter, counter-press, high press, etc). As you can see from the results, it works ridiculously well in the FM years.
The positional play makes the AFs, AMs and VOLs change positions dynamically and the WBs get extremely high ratings, even my U19 talent Elias Baum (who is barely ready for league 2) got an average of 7.20.
While using two VOLs and two WBs should be far too offensive, as only the two BPDs stay behind in attack, this doesn't really show in this year's FM, as both the VOLs and the WBs are ridiculously fast at returning to their positions when they lose the ball.
But the most glaring issue (which has been prevalent for quite a few iterations) is how extremely high pressing tactics with harder tackling and counter-pressing can work over >90 minute games without any downtime.
In reality, if you look at teams that rely on this type of pressing, they can usually only do it for less than 30 minutes per game, and even those 30 minutes are usually spread out over the course of the game.
In between, they may still position themselves high up the pitch, but they won't be running at the opposition non-stop.
In FM, using this tactic, you will usually have less than 3 players in red in the first 70 minutes, and if you use all 5 subs, not a single player will be seriously tired after 90 minutes.
The AI teams that play much more defensive tactics usually have more players in the red after the same time.
PROPOSED SOLUTION
For the issues with overpowered roles in the game engine, it's difficult for me to offer a simple solution, as I simply don't have the necessary insight into the implementation.
However, as mentioned above, I'd recommend looking into whether the highly mobile/aggressive roles such as WB and VOL should be able to retreat so quickly. Playing more defensive roles in at least one of the two slots should be more rewarding.
I can look through my game files and find some examples with timestamps if you want to look into this.
On the other hand, fixing the pressing issues should be easier. There's already an "Intensity" value in the game, and if it's maxed out, most players with average stamina should be completely exhausted after 45 minutes.
Currently my forwards with 10-11 stamina can play 90 minutes using this tactic.
I understand that this has implications for the AI coaches, as those with similar presets will have to dynamically adjust their tactics from time to time - but they're already capable of changing their tactics mid-game, so this shouldn't be a showstopper.
TL;DR
Certain settings and roles in Tactics work too well. Especially highly mobile and offensive roles like VOL and WB have no downside compared to more defensive options.
100% intensity tactics are better than others and players with low stamina (10-11) can still play 90 minutes in these tactics.
Instead, players with low stamina should only be able to play a maximum of 45mins in these tactics, even expecting high stamina players to press for 60mins is unreasonable.
Coaches should be required to switch to less intense tactics for periods of time throughout the game.
Here's part 1:
Thanks again for thousands of hours of fun <3
Best regards
Svonn
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