Football Manager is unrealistically easy for bigger teams

[Nomis07]

There should be a difficulty level for Lyon and Psv in real life. It's normal that the game becomes more easy because you know who the good players are. If you play it LLM style it will not be easy anymore.

You've kinda answered your own question about difficulty levels there i.e. Lyon/PSV are easy and LLM is very hard.

I don't like the idea of difficulty levels, the game is as easy/hard as you make it.

[HL7]

My issue with FM, and has been my issue since CM3, is that the EPL is rediculously over-rated. Too many average/good players are way better in FM than they are in real life. Mikel Arteta is a good example. A player that could walk into most teams in the FM world yet wouldn't be good enough for the EPL's top four in real life.

I suggest lowering the attributes of alot of players in you want realism.

As it stands though the game is still good fun.

[glamdring]

They are not "taking the easy route", they are playing the game as they want to, just as people who start unemployed or in a low league club are playing the game in the way they want to. Starting out at a small club is not an intrinsically better way to play the game and doesnt make you a "better" type of person, it is simply a different approach.

I don't quite see how your response relates to what I said. "taking the easy route" and "playing the game as they want to" are not mutually exclusive. Starting at one of the biggest clubs in the game is taking the easy route - it's almost impossible to argue with that. I never said the easy route is a bad thing to do, just that I have no time for people who do that and then try to claim the game as a whole is too easy. Well yes, of course it is because you took the easiest team. If you play a realistic Formula 1 racing simulation and you choose to drive a Ferrari or McLaren then you are taking the easy option - again nothing wrong with that, but it is undeniable it is easier.

Difficulty levels already exist in a number of different ways. One is in your choice of club and league, another comes from your self discipline. If you choose to manage the biggest club, use tactics that exploit flaws in the match engine, 3rd party scouting programs to buy all the best talent with no degree of risk whatsoever then that is entirely the choice of the player. Alternatively you could still manage a big club, but develop your own realistic football tactics (or even restrict yourself to minor variations of one of the default tactics), buy only players recommended by your scouts, etc, etc.

It's your choice to play the game how you like, but it's a bit rich for someone to then come along here and claim the game as a whole is too easy.

[Nomis07]

It's your choice to play the game how you like, but it's a bit rich for someone to then come along here and claim the game as a whole is too easy.

Exactly! I play as Bayern Munich because i'm actually quite bad at the game and my various jaunts into LLM have been disastrous, no point in lieing about it, at the same time I wouldn't say the game is easy considering who I manage.

[Ferrari312]

It's just a game....

Yeah a bloody good one, but still.

But yeah, for those who fancy a challenge and something different, I've always found a foray into LLM (in the literal sense of the phrase, not that subforum with all the extra rules) works wonders.

[Themistofelis]

It gets unrealistically easy after you spend zillions of hours perfecting your tactics and AI can do nothing about it , it is a game and all games have issues you can exploit .

I love to cheat but good tactics make cheating obsolete .

Searching for the right players to do your job is always a challenge tho (specially when scout reports do not help since i want players with specific stats )

Not playing in Italy/Spain/England makes the game much better IMO

[Ozzy38]

Rather than created a repeat topic I'll post in here.

I'll play the party pooper. It's kinda a shame that these things happen, at the same time as it being great when ya win. FM has just been too easy at least recently. Sure you'll have tough matches at first most likely, but in the end you'll be a top team as long as you take over someone like Tottenham, Newcastle (and obviously Chelsea, Man Utd) etc.

If I took over Tottenham in real life, it would be a miracle if I won the Champions League, two or three UEFA Cups, 3 Premier League titles, one or two more cups within a decade, which I have done in FM.

I played a game as Netherlands Antilles, one of the worst international sides in the world, and only lost to the USA 3-0 on agg. in the first World Cup Qualifying campaign.

Sure it sucks to lose, but when I win or do well I'd like to think I'm doing it because I deserve it, not because seemingly no-one else playing this game with an IQ above 90 is doing a Fulham, Charlton, Rochdale (read: not going anywhere. Winning some, losing some, just not winning everything) or dare I say a Bryan Robson (fail at every team managed, with one or two seasons possible being a 'success' or above expectations, without winning anything in said seasons).

If you do fail at first, eventually you move to a team where you don't look back and dominate the continent by buying random foreigners who simply have great numbers and who a scout watched a couple of times, along with tweaking the tactic to near-perfection.

At least that is my expereince.

[SiN8]

Maybe the new transfer module will maintain/improve upon the competitiveness of AI sides in the longer term.

Is this "new" transfer module coming in 9.3? Because I thought one of the selling points for FM09 was a completely revamped transfer system.

[Ozzy38]

Is this "new" transfer module coming in 9.3? Because I thought one of the selling points for FM09 was a completely revamped transfer system.

Could you have not posted about the difficulty rather than another boring 'the game has an issue/bug - signed Captain Obvious'?

Much rather be finding out if there will be any steps taken in future to make the game move more towards realism so that we don't end up buying loads ofunkown, random foreigners with good attributes and winning everything. Perhaps the next big thing should be scouting, cos right now you scout once, or not at all, and know pretty much everything and even at what level the guy WILL/can at most play in future.

We should be ableto sign a few 'future (insert top name here)' only for him to go the way of Francis Jeffers or Liam Miller.

[Niall Clarke]

I think the abilities of the AI managers need to be improved. I'm not sure how SI could implemented but the top managers should be better a spotting a talent and better at being able to react to the match is going. If you're playing .v. Wenger or Ferguson, they should be able to realise what tactics you're using and change theirs in order to stifle yours.

I think perhaps that tactics should be less important too. It could be argued that some mid-table managers are better than those at the top. Why aren't they winning then? It's not because of inferior tactics. The quality of players on your team should play a bigger role in how FM works.