Is Football Manager in Decline?

[crouchaldinho]

The match engine was exploitable if you went out of your way to exploit it. Just like with diablo and the corners in FM10, right?

That said, if you didn't do any of the weird positionings (like striker marking keeper) that the engine couldn't cope with, the tactical side with the WBL/WOBL was superb, you could position your players exactly as you wanted them. So if I wanted a wide midfielder who played on the wing when we didn't have the ball and gave me width in our own half but then came into the centre in the attacking third, I could set that up very easily as I wanted it, rather than how SI / Ray Houghton / a hundred and one tactical sliders interpret it.

And if the 01/02 engine hadn't been ditched, it would now have had another 10 years of development, so I'd imagine most of the flaws would have been fixed. And you could have that in 2d / 3d as you liked

I've got to be honest and say that I just found it unrealistic and boring to place my players like that on the with ball and without ball screens. I much prefer it how things are now.

I remember that tactical system as being really easy to exploit by accident as well. For instance, I remember creating a lone striker tactic and ending up being able to hugely overachieve with any side regardless of the quality of the players. As a result, I don't personally look back on it that fondly.

It's just my opinion though. Fair enough if you think it was the best CM/FM.

[jase19]

I don't think it's declined but they have lost perspective on the small things. B teams are always wrong, every year mention is made and it seems that programming is done from an English perspective. Understandable since SI are British based but incorrect with the way football is governed. Far more influence in the football world is garnered abroad than in the UK. Bar the Premiership which is only successful due to financial prosperity, every other division struggles to produce much inovation in World terms. B teams in Spain have produced and continue to produce some of the best youngsters in World Football yet the game fails to deal with this correctly.

Also English teams in the game are far superior than their European counterparts which makes the English national side one of the best in the game, again totally unrealistic. There is not one player in the England team who can play abroad, none do and the only one who still carries weight internationally is David Beckham, who is in his 30s. I fail to see why SI seem frightened to reduce the level of superiority in-game of English teams and pay a bit more attention to the small details abroad.

Another example is the Belgium names, which apparently have been causing a problem in-game leading to German sounding Belgium players appearing as newgens as the seasons progress. The official reply to this problem is that the names are rather unusual and therefore it will not be fixed in this edition. However unpronounceable English named players appear to not be a problem. Again the problem is that as FM and SI have got ever bigger they continue to still cater for their core English market while they seem to forget that they are more present abroad than seems to be acknowledged.

A case of the moster getting too big to control. At least heading that way.

Yeah English teams shouldn't be superior. They've only won 2 of the last 6 champions leagues in real life, along with having 4 clubs be the runners up. That's 6 of the last 12 finalists being english clubs.

3 italian

2 spanish

1 german

hmm... wait maybe you're wrong and anti-premiership? thats fine. just stop whining.

[Quavis]

I voted "I still enjoy it as much as I used to". This mainly just applies to FM though, as I understand and struggle with the "I still play it but i don't enjoy it like i used to" crowd in other games.

I think the real problem with press conferences and player interaction is:

- It's repetitive

- There are no "right" answers - just "most of these are wrong"

- You can't really use it to your advantage...

- ... But get it wrong and you are put at a disadvantage

- You don't know if you are wrong until you see the players' reactions (has anyone thought that managers get talks with members of the club's PR team?)

- And you don't know if you are right

- It's repetitive so you send your assistant, which is a key hint that it's not actually a good feature...

- ... But can't really tell your assistant roughly what to say

- The "best" method is usually to say "no comment" all the way through, which defeats the purpose of the thing

I disagree with all of the above regarding press conferences other than they are repetitive. There are definitely answers in press conferences which can give your team a much needed boost in many situations (as well as answers which are bad). There are some loaded questions that come up where I personally feel "no comment" is the best answer and I don't think there is anything wrong with that. I'm quite happy they took out the required confirmation with each question in fm2011 as this should speed up press conferences considerably.

I do agree with you on the new player interaction modules for FM2011. There don't seem to be many right answers and players tend to just get upset regardless of what you said. I think that over time, we will figure out what sort of personalities and individuals need certain responses and it will get somewhat better. However, I do think SI needs to take a look at this and give us more neutral and/or ways out of the question without making the player upset. This is a new module and I'm sure SI will make some improvements here, hopefully as soon as the release day patch. It does need work.

I use 442 but switch between control and counter depending whether home or away; or defensive against big teams in the cups. I believe in formation consistency while employing situational tactics within it.

It looks like you and I finally agree on something :wink: . The change from counter to control is the only non injury forced change to my tactics I usually make on a game to game basis (and even within games) and It seems to be pretty successful. I'm also running the stock 4-4-2 with only minor changes to a few team settings. I tend to run control when I feel I have better players than the opposition and counter when they are equal or better than me.

Nice to see another FM player from the LA area!

I think for a lot of people (not everyone mind) as they grow up they get less and less time to play the game, plus everything when you're experiencing it for the first time generally is better. <snip>

I think this might be the root of the issue for many people. In general, I don't have near as much time for computer games as I used to while I was still in school. At the same time, I still have the same desire and competitiveness which drives me to maintain the same level of success. This leads to frustration when the two clash and takes the "fun" out of games for me.

So far I've managed to mostly avoid this in FM as I'm not really competing with anyone and at least for me I don't really care how long it takes to complete a season. I do however, tend to stop following challenges like dafuge's earlier each year as I get frustrated that people are already completing the challenges and I'm not through season 1 yet. This is also the reason I buy a single mega millions lottery ticket twice a week for the 1:208025827927 chance that I win and will be able to retire and eliminate this problem for good

[cf]

In terms of the poll options, I don't play the game any more. I don't think it's a bad game but it just no longer appeals to my tastes, I find it more frustrating than fun. I certainly don't think the game is in decline though, it does appear to be improving version after version, whether you appreciate the changes is another thing.

[kevintoon182]

Fm10 was hugely disapointing to me, but from the looks of it 11 will be a revival

[jase19]

seems like there is a lot of whining in comparison to the poll results.

[SCIAG]

seems like there is a lot of whining in comparison to the poll results.

Complaining people shout loudest.

[jase19]

Complaining people shout loudest.

lol too true

[Kriss]

Your first FM is like your first girlfriend, you'll have many more but none will quite provide the magic of the first encounter:)

[richie32]

nicely put

[djvandyke]

The awful slider based non intuitive tactical setup, over complicated labour intensive training regimes and the absolute boredom of chores like press conferences what made Football Manager a far less enjoyable experience for me.

[Jelle Slaets]

With FM07 i had what was arguably the best tactic. At that time i had loads of people message me to say thanks for my efforts otherwise they wouldn't get any enjoyment out the game. Since then i have lost touch with FM myself. I just can't seem to understand it anymore. So what about the other people? I got used to loads of people through my own threads and since FM08 they have disappeared.

Whilst i am hereby stating that the fault lies within the user and not the game i still do believe that SI are taking the game away from mainstream and into hardcore.

...

Which catergory do you fall into?

PLEASE try to keep comments respectfull. No SI Sucks or Fanboy comments. If you have something positive or negative to say then by all means do so here but keep it polite.

I know SI read these threads and i would like them to understand WHY people like me won't be buying FM11. It's not because i hate the game, in fact the opposite. I just can't come to terms with it anymore.

I still enjoy it.

I however, do not understand your point. You say people can make great tactics for Real Madrid and Barcelona, but not for York? That to me doesn't make any sense.

If their were tactics that were unbeatable, the game would would not be a very accurate one. Football is not solely about the tactic, the entire picture has to be right (players / tactics / finances / staff ...) I find it a lot more realistic in the latest versions of FM. Tactics can still be used to shift your teams focus or playstyle, but they will not make you win every single game. With the old "supertactics", you could win eventhough you couldn't compete player-stat wise. And then obviously, there is still the random / morale / streak factor involved.

Tactics are far less complicated now should you chose to ignore them. For people (like me) that don't get much enjoyment out of the whole tactical aspect, it's nice to be able to chose a good preset, change some basics and be ready. My personal focus has always been the spotting young talents, training them big (preferably domestic ones) and then go as far in Europe with those youngsters. In this area, there have been quite some improvements since 2007.

[SCIAG]

The awful slider based non intuitive tactical setup, over complicated labour intensive training regimes and the absolute boredom of chores like press conferences what made Football Manager a far less enjoyable experience for me.

Sliders have always been in there, and now you don't have to see them.

Training- do it once, you'll never have to touch it again, unless SI revamp training like they did this year..

Press conferences- I don't really see what they contribute, though I don't find them as boring as most people (okay, every one!) says they are. If you don't like them, send the ass man.

[djvandyke]

Sliders have always been in there.

Not in my day.

[Bardzie]

I'm amazed you think CM01/02 is better than any of the FMs!

I thought it was all right at the time, I suppose, but the match engine was ridiculously easy to exploit with the with ball/without ball screens, and mucking about with them in the first place wasn't exactly my idea of a fun time!

Looking back, I think it would be really boring to go back to that now, especially with no 2D engine and a match engine/tactical system that is way too easy to exploit without even trying.

i also thought this was the best FM until i played '10

now i'm already fully immersed in '11 (legit) and i can tell you now that this is a classic

[crouchaldinho]

How can you know it's a classic already? :confused:

[Nobby_McDonald]

Where is the poll option that states I enjoy it more than ever?

[low42]

For every one of us who moves away from FM, they'll be a little guy new to the gaming world picking up a copy and immersing him or herself into it deeper than we could ever have dreamed (or wanted).

I must be the little new guy. I just converted to FM after 5 years of FIFA Manager. I just can't take that crap anymore.