How do I feel about FM last releases

[moxphere]

I have been postponing writing this e-mail for a long time (maybe 6 months or more). It took long because I didn't want it to look like a rant, although it is one. This is about how I do feel about the only gaming software I use for about two decades now (which should say something about how it is important for me).

I have bought all editions of then Championship Manager and after Football Manager since 1998, when I first visited a friend in Leeds. The game certainly influenced my professional career (I am a journalist) and definitely occupied a great deal of my time since then.  The game was, with is encyclopedical knowledge, a true knowledge source when reporting football. It's amazing the  footballing world have took so long to realise its potential use.

I've never considered the possibility of not buying the next FM edition, because it was a sort of a ritual. I've never made posts like "This is the worst version I have seen" and so forth. Even when the game was unplayable in a few Beta versions, I bought it and learnt how to deal with it, because it was just like saying "Manchester City and Chelsea destroyed football" and stop seeing matches. It doesn't work like this. If it does, you don't like it. Period. I saw the rants about the new versions only as a symptom of adolescent mood swings, anxiety unproperly managed (which is perfectly fine). But I must say that for the 1st time, I don't know if I will buy an edition.

There are many things that always bothered me, like the annoying search for coaches, setting up a new game, the unrealistic asking price of players within the game or more recently, the obnoxious social media frenzy that, yes, reflects real life in its stupidity, but shouldn't be part of the match, just like corruption and bungs do not. FM is (or has always been) a game for who likes football (and not only likes to see its own team).

There is a reason for that. The users who are old enough to have been playing for such a long time remember how the yearly releases were mostly making the game more likeable, like the 3D matches or the substitution of with-ball without-ball tactics for more sophisticated ones. For most of the time, there were real signs of progress making the game better, more similar to how matches are played. The virtual platform allowed you to try something different and win (or lose) in terms just like real life. But this is no longer true, at least for the last couple of versions.

Usually the rants against the new releases are born of frustration. If you can't win, something is wrong, right? Wrong. The game is not made for you to win, but to emulate the game. The level of accuracy of the engine was bizarre. Back in 2005, when me (and many other people) saw Liverpool winning the FM version Champions League on that season thought that it was a bug of the game, months after the unlikely victory in Istambul. Or Ronaldo going to Real Madrid. Or so many other things. 

The question is that I can win. My teams win titles or avoid relegations, but the details of the tactical simulation are simply no longer equivalent to real life. I mean: if your team is conceding too many goals, you drop another midfielder back and tell him to mark tighter. If you tell your team to drop back, you avoid goals. You do not tell both defenders to go and catch the striker up in midfield, nor ask your full backs to come inside. Simple things. It used to work, but now, you need to play the game how it is and not how football is (which made CM-FM an unique creature, like very few other games).

If you go into the forums and download the tactics that are more successful, with lots of people approving it, in most cases, they are unreal. For example: one of them lines three advanced forwards altogether; another, uses two mezzalas attacking; a third one has central defenders up in the pitch like they were midfielders. On football, playing like this would simply not work. There are no teams with three Lewandowskis, nor with two Bonuccis in the back. In Italy, the mezzalas are virtually box-to-box midfielders with a slower tempo, never gung-ho playmakers. The  names of the roles differ because they come from different countries, but many of them overlap.

This is not supposed to be an unique truth. THis is just my view of the game, after playing it for so long and feeling frustrated about how in the last years, real development had been switched for digital clutter, a never ending list of tasks that take so much time and really couldn't be less relevant Maybe some users play the game with these setups and feel good about it if they win. Maybe they are ok lining up teams that simply wouldn't live to tell the story in real life. After all, it's just a game, right? Well, not for me. I just wanted to vent out, because I see myself without my only digital addiction in the (near) future and I really feel sad about it.

[martplfc1]

Tl;Dr: normal tactics don't work, too many attack-heavy tactics do.

I agree with the latter, but also that it is possible to be successful with standard tactics. It's tough, but if you read the guides in the tactics forum it starts to make sense. Try reading those, or there are plenty of regular, well thought-out tactics in the forum.

Anyway, 19 will be out soon, will be interesting to see what changes that brings about.

[Neil Brock]

Yeah I see what you're saying. It is difficult absolutely to have the match engine reward football logical setups and punish anything 'unrealistic', but agree the goal is to make tactical 'football' decisions based on what you'd do in football. You never want to be doing something tactically because it just works well in game and has no basis on reality.

I've played a little bit with Newcastle and am very much trying to reproduce the way Rafa plays. The key here is how I interpret Rafa's tactical setup and how to reproduce it in game. I know from reading on these forums people have very much found a disconnect between a real life instruction and an in game instruction which certainly would make this harder than you'd like for someone without much FM experience. This is where our community has become so helpful in spreading the word and removing some of the ambiguity of the game. But we know there's always things we can try to do to improve the experience, which is why we very much appreciate this type of feedback.  It gives us the opportunity to see things from the user's perspective and stop to think ourselves how we can solve those types of puzzles. 

Now I can't guarantee there won't be a strikerless or a front three type formation that the AI struggles against, but we do try and make every effort to make the match engine as realistic as possible. Hopefully we can make the engine for FM19 the most realistic and true to football engine we've ever produced. 

[russell9]

Agreed. The game has certainly gone backward. Core issues like unrealistic tactics/match engine and player interactions were never fixed but things that doesn't need a fix like UI and scouting were being tinkered and became worse.

Well, sounds like FM19 is gonna have some positive changes on the match engine!?

[westy8chimp]

The more you know about real life tactics the more you demand of FMs tactic creator. The issue is... Tactical theory, practice, interpretation is to a very large extent subjective. It encapsulates the DNA of the individuals paradigm (tactical concepts)... So neither all the monkeys with all the typewriters... Nor the worlds best coders sat in a room (SI can tell is which group they most resemble) could possibly come up with a set of code that allows us to copy any real life manager (cant get inside peps head nor understand how you and i may perceive peps tactics differently) and their tactical philosophy. 

Im as frustrated as anybody when such a vital piece of tactics such as pressing is reduced to a scale of 'more, less or sometimes'... But i accept little improvements along the way... And except for the odd mood swing... I still love FM and try edition after edition to emulate some real life tactical strategy that have inspired me (as closely as possible). Its definitely still possible to have success with a well setup 442 or a F9 setup built of an image you can find on the web about the Totti Roma side etc... Examples in the tactics forum... There are some major exploits (just avoid using them) and some whopping holes and mistakes in the ME/TC (put up with them) 

Hope you do buy FM19 or it'll be the one that got away when you leave your FM legacy behind as inheritance! 

[wayne'o]

On 20/08/2018 at 19:33, Neil Brock said:

Yeah I see what you're saying. It is difficult absolutely to have the match engine reward football logical setups and punish anything 'unrealistic', but agree the goal is to make tactical 'football' decisions based on what you'd do in football. You never want to be doing something tactically because it just works well in game and has no basis on reality.

I've played a little bit with Newcastle and am very much trying to reproduce the way Rafa plays. The key here is how I interpret Rafa's tactical setup and how to reproduce it in game. I know from reading on these forums people have very much found a disconnect between a real life instruction and an in game instruction which certainly would make this harder than you'd like for someone without much FM experience. This is where our community has become so helpful in spreading the word and removing some of the ambiguity of the game. But we know there's always things we can try to do to improve the experience, which is why we very much appreciate this type of feedback.  It gives us the opportunity to see things from the user's perspective and stop to think ourselves how we can solve those types of puzzles. 

Now I can't guarantee there won't be a strikerless or a front three type formation that the AI struggles against, but we do try and make every effort to make the match engine as realistic as possible. Hopefully we can make the engine for FM19 the most realistic and true to football engine we've ever produced. 

Reading between the lines is this a clue that FM19 has had some big changes?

[HUNT3R]

SI strive to make every new version's ME better and more realistic than the last, so it is what they say every year. 

 

[wayne'o]

15 minutes ago, HUNT3R said:

SI strive to make every new version's ME better and more realistic than the last, so it is what they say every year. 

 

So you’re not expecting anything special or different? 😜

[Lucas]

1 hour ago, wayne'o said:

So you’re not expecting anything special or different? 😜

Just better. 

[Shawn_Michaels]

2 hours ago, wayne'o said:

So you’re not expecting anything special or different? 😜

Who really is? It is annoying how SI will revamp stuff that wasn't even that bad compared to others that really should have been changed for a long time. 

[HUNT3R]

2 hours ago, wayne'o said:

So you’re not expecting anything special or different? 😜

Expecting? No. Hoping? Yes. There will be changes. That's a given. Whether it's something special or the "usual" improvements, we'll have to wait and see. Almost every year something is added or re-written, so I'm still keen to see what's improved in the ME and/or AI managers specifically.

Nothing Neil said hinted at anything though, so I wouldn't read too much into it. 

[callamity]

On 20/08/2018 at 19:33, Neil Brock said:

Yeah I see what you're saying. It is difficult absolutely to have the match engine reward football logical setups and punish anything 'unrealistic', but agree the goal is to make tactical 'football' decisions based on what you'd do in football. You never want to be doing something tactically because it just works well in game and has no basis on reality.

I've played a little bit with Newcastle and am very much trying to reproduce the way Rafa plays. The key here is how I interpret Rafa's tactical setup and how to reproduce it in game. I know from reading on these forums people have very much found a disconnect between a real life instruction and an in game instruction which certainly would make this harder than you'd like for someone without much FM experience. This is where our community has become so helpful in spreading the word and removing some of the ambiguity of the game. But we know there's always things we can try to do to improve the experience, which is why we very much appreciate this type of feedback.  It gives us the opportunity to see things from the user's perspective and stop to think ourselves how we can solve those types of puzzles. 

Now I can't guarantee there won't be a strikerless or a front three type formation that the AI struggles against, but we do try and make every effort to make the match engine as realistic as possible. Hopefully we can make the engine for FM19 the most realistic and true to football engine we've ever produced. 

I for one would be very interested in some form of write up about your interpretation and how you are trying to implement rafa bentiez style in game. 

Coming from the si side of the game might show a different way of tactical thinking which might help others. 

I have a lot of fun trying this style out since he became the newcastle manager. 

[moxphere]

On 20/08/2018 at 20:33, Neil Brock said:

Yeah I see what you're saying. It is difficult absolutely to have the match engine reward football logical setups and punish anything 'unrealistic', but agree the goal is to make tactical 'football' decisions based on what you'd do in football. You never want to be doing something tactically because it just works well in game and has no basis on reality.

I've played a little bit with Newcastle and am very much trying to reproduce the way Rafa plays. The key here is how I interpret Rafa's tactical setup and how to reproduce it in game. I know from reading on these forums people have very much found a disconnect between a real life instruction and an in game instruction which certainly would make this harder than you'd like for someone without much FM experience. This is where our community has become so helpful in spreading the word and removing some of the ambiguity of the game. But we know there's always things we can try to do to improve the experience, which is why we very much appreciate this type of feedback.  It gives us the opportunity to see things from the user's perspective and stop to think ourselves how we can solve those types of puzzles. 

Now I can't guarantee there won't be a strikerless or a front three type formation that the AI struggles against, but we do try and make every effort to make the match engine as realistic as possible. Hopefully we can make the engine for FM19 the most realistic and true to football engine we've ever produced. 

Neil, sorry for the delay. I was on a FM-free period until the 2019 version was launched and didn't log in the forum for a couple of months. I agree with you and I understand that keeping up with the updates in football - increased fitness and physical preparation developments, tactical approaches and even clubs' policies - should be really hard, and even nearly impossible to reflect it 100%. My point is that in the last two versions, the game tried more to emulate the futilities of the game (like social media or media interaction0 and left the playable part aside (probably not on purpose, though).

As a user, I don't mind having the game a little bit out of the edge and leaving some details slightly different from the real life, but the basics cannot fail. Leaky defences, in general, need to improve with a man more; tighter and more cautious approaches need to improve defence numbers, as well as more attacking players should improve upfront. That's not opinion, but logical conclusions (obviously, admitting that there will be exceptions, where the changes can fail due to extraordinary reasons). You are also right mentioning that the community is important (and it's visible). My main goal with my involuntary rant was to give a heads up as a long-time player and football observer (because I know that these inputs are collected by you).

Ah, yes, I failed to have my frustration rule and bought Fm19. Maybe it's wishful thinking but I felt a more solid match engine ("solid" being more similar to real life football), even with the normal bugs that Beta versions carry.

[Dagenham_Dave]

The more realistic FM gets, the greater the unrealistic expectations of what it should be are. 

Vicious circle.