FM difficulty...

[FMunderachiever]

I dont particularly want to spend my free time after 50 hour work weeks grinding like mad every game like i did when i was a teenager.

 

It the game is a bit easier and still enjoyable, so be it.

 

Its a computer game.

 

If moaning that computer games are too easy is your thing, why not go do some real coaching with juniors or something?

[QWERTYOP]

With pre-set tactical styles now a big part of the game, the game is now easier than ever IMO. But then doing things that way is much, much less rewarding. 

[Urotsukidoji]

close this thread plz

[phnompenhandy]

47 minutes ago, Urotsukidoji said:

close this thread plz

Don't be silly - it is a vitally important topic.

[pats]

After playing the beta more and more, I'm coming close to the conclusion that -

- In form teams are too powerful, even if it's a mid or low tier team. This may need balancing.

- Gegenpressing is easy to master and even the mid and low tier teams become too efficient with it very quickly. This pressing style should be hard to master and may need balancing.

Apart from the two major issues (imo) above, all the other UI and other bugs are minor and would be fixed easily for the release, I'm sure of that. The ME is also much better than previous versions, and is producing some very good football and realistic results. All the other minor unannounced features are also great additions and make the playing experience so much better. I think I'll remain addicted to FM for one more year at least. 

Oh and special mention to the new training module. It looks like someone from Paradox Interactive came up with it. Very detailed. Genius addition. 

[RandomGuy.]

9 hours ago, Sir James Lancaster said:

I find this iteration of FM easy to the point of being unrewarding and boring. There is simply no challenge. IMO its a game more than a simulation. Maybe someone made a choice; perhaps there is more money to be made with a game rather than a realistic simulation - who knows. I keep buying it though...

You do sometimes have to find your own challenge.

I wonder how many people have replicated their "easy success" for multiple seasons in a row too, been plenty people in the past claim it's too easy as they took a Southampton level team into Europe, but then they absolutely bomb in the second season (although they rarely admit to that). I've had that myself where I took my mid table club to within points of the title, then barely last half the next season as we're muddling about bottom half but the club expectations are now so high.

Further point is Liverpools squad is virtually perfect for FM, every year a team with quality full backs, defenders with solid heading, IFs with pace and a striker who drops off will get you major results on the game. Klopps done the hard work there, and every season I've played I've looked at the EPL table and Liverpool have either been miles in front on their own, or miles in front with Man City/Man U beside them. It's no different to managing Real Madrid/Bayern in previous years. 

[grasu]

I don't understand why SI refuses to add difficulty levels to FM. Some people enjoy winning everything and some teams are really OP, especially when it comes to their internal competitions. So why not just add an easy/medium/hard difficulty setting? Make the difficulty settings like in other TBS games, where on normal everything stays the same and everyone is on equal footing. On easy the AI is gimped and the player gets advantages (say a higher transfer budget, quicker gelling of players, less fatigue per match, etc.) and then, on hard, just make the game realistic: lots of injuries (like IRL), hard/very hard to sign players with 4 years left on their contract, transferred players more likely to underperform, etc.

[dannysheard]

8 hours ago, FMunderachiever said:

I dont particularly want to spend my free time after 50 hour work weeks grinding like mad every game like i did when i was a teenager.

 

It the game is a bit easier and still enjoyable, so be it.

 

Its a computer game.

 

If moaning that computer games are too easy is your thing, why not go do some real coaching with juniors or something?

I completely get that some people want to be able to speed through the game and not really think about tactics or fitness or morale as much as other people, and still win matches.

But...there are lots of people that do want to spend ages micromanaging the club like a real football manager, and for us, in the last few years, it has somehow become very easy.

All we want is a challenge. If people on here are saying that they have plug and played some of the preset tactics and walked the league, then surely just give Pep a fixed tactic of VTT and City would be much better and harder to beat.

And I wouldn't say that coming on a forum to ask developers to make a game more difficult is necessarily moaning.

[HUNT3R]

32 minutes ago, grasu said:

I don't understand why SI refuses to add difficulty levels to FM. 

Because it isn't practical.

[CFuller]

If you want to add arbitrary difficulty settings to a simulation game, you are missing the point of what a simulation game is. Any game that would automatically turn Las Palmas into Barcelona (or vice versa) just because you're playing against them on a certain difficulty 'level' cannot honestly claim to be realistic.

[grasu]

3 minutes ago, HUNT3R said:

Because it isn't practical.

What exactly isn't practical about it? Some people like to speed their way though the game while others like to spend hours tinkering with their tactics. The fact of the matter is that it's extremely easy to win trophies even with mid-table teams, let alone top teams. The only thing that remains remotely challenging in the long run is the Champions League but even that you can win every other year as a top level team. 

Basically giving people the choice between an unaltered game (normal) an easier game (easy) and a more realistic game (harder) would solve a large amount of complaints. Instead of answering every "but they asked 100 billion for a 2 star striker" topic with an obscure explanation, let people who want to buy everything for next to nothing just play on easy. 

[HUNT3R]

1 minute ago, grasu said:

What exactly isn't practical about it? Some people like to speed their way though the game while others like to spend hours tinkering with their tactics. The fact of the matter is that it's extremely easy to win trophies even with mid-table teams, let alone top teams. The only thing that remains remotely challenging in the long run is the Champions League but even that you can win every other year as a top level team. 

Basically giving people the choice between an unaltered game (normal) an easier game (easy) and a more realistic game (harder) would solve a large amount of complaints. Instead of answering every "but they asked 100 billion for a 2 star striker" topic with an obscure explanation, let people who want to buy everything for next to nothing just play on easy. 

You're looking it from the customer point of view, not about having to maintain and balance 3 levels constantly. It's already a lot of work just to balance 1.

[grasu]

14 minutes ago, HUNT3R said:

You're looking it from the customer point of view, not about having to maintain and balance 3 levels constantly. It's already a lot of work just to balance 1.

Of course I'm looking at it from a customer's point of view. How else should I look at it? This is a forum about the game not a sprint planning meeting. SI have shown in the past that they can do a lot in one release, having release FM Classic + Dynamic Reputations + a new UI in one release! I understand that something like this takes a lot of effort and won't come next year, but games now-a-days are all about player choice.

And this would be a major boon in terms of player choice. Besides, imagine how much time could be spared answering topics like "tish gaem suzck ! just cant beat barcelona wth <insert crappy team here>".

[Baodan]

Lets not forget that this is a beta version of FM19. A few things will no doubt be changed for final release and if you have to error in this phase, its usually better to error on the side of the customer (easier - not harder).

CoD BO4 recently had a beta test of their normal TDM and the servers ran at 60hz tickrate. Now that the game is actually out, the servers for the same game mode only runs at 20hz tickrate.

Any MOBA player will know that when a new character becomes available, that character is usually somewhat overpowered in the beginning. Then after a while when everyone has bought the character, they hit it with a nerf to bring it more in-line with the rest of the roster.

Its common practice so don't draw too many conclusions off of the back of a beta test.

[Dagenham_Dave]

59 minutes ago, grasu said:

I don't understand why SI refuses to add difficulty levels to FM. 

Because in a game like this, it would be utterly impossible to implement. 

Anyway, there already are difficulty levels of a sort in the game. How you set your manager up compared to the club you're managing can make it harder or easier. If you go a top club and set yourself up as a top manager with full stats and all the badges, that's like picking Amateur mode on FIFA. 

[Baodan]

1 minute ago, Dagenham_Dave said:

Anyway, there already are difficulty levels of a sort in the game. How you set your manager up compared to the club you're managing can make it harder or easier. If you go a top club and set yourself up as a top manager with full stats and all the badges, that's like picking Amateur mode on FIFA. 

A sometimes underrated option to influence difficulty for sure.

[Dagenham_Dave]

Anyway, too easy my left, er, foot....

Struggling big time - I've already been sacked on my FMT save. But I'm loving the challenge of it.  

[iAlwaysWin]

i wouldnt say its any easier or any harder than any other fm gme ive played,just this time round the tactically inept have have access to preset tactics designed to work on the match engine.

to those who complain its to easy then try online then, and liverpool are beast in this version so why complain that you dominate, go qpr or someone.

[grasu]

3 minutes ago, Dagenham_Dave said:

Because in a game like this, it would be utterly impossible to implement. 

Anyway, there already are difficulty levels of a sort in the game. How you set your manager up compared to the club you're managing can make it harder or easier. If you go a top club and set yourself up as a top manager with full stats and all the badges, that's like picking Amateur mode on FIFA. 

That pretty much contradicts your first statement. So implementing a difficulty level IS possible. i'm not suggesting they should just let you win, but maybe give you a set of options you can check off or on. Stuff like realistic transfers, realistic team management, realistic injuries, etc.

[tkg]

 

5 minutes ago, grasu said:

Of course I'm looking at it from a customer's point of view. How else should I look at it? This is a forum about the game not a sprint planning meeting. SI have shown in the past that they can do a lot in one release, having release FM Classic + Dynamic Reputations + a new UI in one release! I understand that something like this takes a lot of effort and won't come next year, but games now-a-days are all about player choice.

And this would be a major boon in terms of player choice. Besides, imagine how much time could be spared answering topics like "tish gaem suzck ! just cant beat barcelona wth <insert crappy team here>".

The other thing to bear in mind is how the vast majority of differing difficulty levels are typically achieved in other games. It's not often done by boosting or reducing the "intelligence" of the AI but by adding handicaps to the player or advantages to the AI.

How do you think this would be achieved in FM? Because I suspect it would be things like:

•  User controlled players recover slower than AI
• Morale being impacted more for human players
• more injuries than AI teams
• AI that is less willing to sell to you rather than other AI teams.
• Stat and morale boost to all AI controlled players

That doesn't sound like something that would go down well with the vast majority of users.

Obviously I'd like to see the AI improve, such as being better able to develop youth and react to tactical changes in a more effective manner. But that would an improvement across the board, not something that needs to be locked behind a difficulty scale.

 

 

 

[HUNT3R]

14 minutes ago, grasu said:

Of course I'm looking at it from a customer's point of view. How else should I look at it? This is a forum about the game not a sprint planning meeting. SI have shown in the past that they can do a lot in one release, having release FM Classic + Dynamic Reputations + a new UI in one release! I understand that something like this takes a lot of effort and won't come next year, but games now-a-days are all about player choice.

And this would be a major boon in terms of player choice. Besides, imagine how much time could be spared answering topics like "tish gaem suzck ! just cant beat barcelona wth <insert crappy team here>".

It doesn't look like you read past my first sentence? You mention tweaking realistic transfers, injuries, team management etc. in a later post.

If you have "easy" "normal" and "hard", SI have 3 times the amount of work to balance all of those modes across all the modules you mention and the ME too. It just doesn't make sense. As a customer, we will lose out, because this isn't a feature you create once and that's it. It will need maintenance multiplied by 3. So less focus on giving us features and more time spent on balancing out the difficulties. WE lose.

So it's not practical. SI focus on making the game as realistic as possible. For people who struggle, there are plenty of options to make it easier.

[Kingstontom88]

There's enough in the game to make it as difficult or as easy as you like - if that doesn't work, use the in-game editor to make it harder or set yourself challenges.

FM introducing difficulty levels would be the end for me - luckily I don't think SI would go that way. 

[Dagenham_Dave]

3 minutes ago, Kingstontom88 said:

 

FM introducing difficulty levels would be the end for me

And me. 

[dannysheard]

50 minutes ago, HUNT3R said:

You're looking it from the customer point of view, not about having to maintain and balance 3 levels constantly. It's already a lot of work just to balance 1.

But it isn't balanced now, hence being able to win the league by 10 points in the first season with the 3rd, 4th or 5th best team in the league.

[westy8chimp]

29 minutes ago, Dagenham_Dave said:

Anyway, too easy my left, er, foot....

Struggling big time - I've already been sacked on my FMT save. But I'm loving the challenge of it.  

But were you sacked for those results or being obstinate in the boardroom?

[Dagenham_Dave]

Just now, westy8chimp said:

But were you sacked for those results or being obstinate in the boardroom?

Not sure how you could ascertain I was sacked for those results when it was in a completely different save...

[grasu]

12 minutes ago, Kingstontom88 said:

There's enough in the game to make it as difficult or as easy as you like - if that doesn't work, use the in-game editor to make it harder or set yourself challenges.

FM introducing difficulty levels would be the end for me - luckily I don't think SI would go that way. 

Them adding more options would be the end? I'm curious how that works. Why would adding more options be an issue? 

This question of "it would take them more to balance" is irrelevant. Every year they release a new UI. This balancing doesn't come from one year to another, this feature is developed over years of development and only released when the developers consider it ready. And it doesn't take NEARLY anywhere as much as rebuilding or redesigning the UI every year (for example).

The vast majority of FM is simplified so that people can get their mojo on an not complain that they can't make whatever backwater village in England champions in 10 years. Every long term career is pretty much dead after the first 5 seasons with anything resembling a top 4 team and the game poses little to no challenge anymore, outside of Europe. 

So, again, I'm not exactly sure why giving you more options to make the game harder and less casual, or easier and more casual, is such a bad idea. Si have already implemented FM Classic for more casual players, do you reckon creating 2 more settings that makes some things harder or easier would be so much more work than a new mode entirely? I highly doubt it.

[HUNT3R]

2 minutes ago, dannysheard said:

But it isn't balanced now, hence being able to win the league by 10 points in the first season with the 3rd, 4th or 5th best team in the league.

[dannysheard]

34 minutes ago, iAlwaysWin said:

i wouldnt say its any easier or any harder than any other fm gme ive played,just this time round the tactically inept have have access to preset tactics designed to work on the match engine.

to those who complain its to easy then try online then, and liverpool are beast in this version so why complain that you dominate, go qpr or someone.

Because I support Liverpool... why would a Liverpool fan buy a football game to go and immediately play as a different team.

Step 1. Engage brain.

Step 2. Speak.

[rcirani7]

1 minute ago, dannysheard said:

Because I support Liverpool... why would a Liverpool fan buy a football game to go and immediately play as a different team.

Step 1. Engage brain.

Step 2. Speak.

Why not? There's no law to say you have to coach the team you support. But if you really want to, try coaching Liverpool with no badges or reputation. That'll make it harder for you.

[true_valiant]

Im not sure what im doing wrong to be honest.. Ive tried two saves so far, one with Sunderland and one with Liverpool. On both I just used the pre loaded tactics as I just wanted a feel of the game. Sunderlands squad should walk league one and I had 4mill to spend and brought in some youngsters on loan from the PL. I struggled to score a goal and lost 2 out of my first 5 games. My second save with Liverpool, lost to Newcastle 1-2, beat Chelsea 6-0 and drew with Burnley 1-1. I get this every year! I just cant seem to get consistent results at all. 

[westy8chimp]

31 minutes ago, iAlwaysWin said:

i wouldnt say its any easier or any harder than any other fm gme ive played,just this time round the tactically inept have have access to preset tactics designed to work on the match engine.

to those who complain its to easy then try online then, and liverpool are beast in this version so why complain that you dominate, go qpr or someone.

You are pigeon holing the issue unfairly tho, assuming its people using presets or top coaching badges or the best team. Or using OP gegenpress

I am using custom tactic, low intensity, low line of engagement, 442 so nothing fancy, picked a distinctly average team (man utd)  and compared to the same variables in fm18 its been far easier.

I broke the goals scored record, pts record, games won record in season 1! I had the least possession and least completed passes in the league. 

This should be useful to SI when combined with the plethora of similar findings... It may suggest that many of the AI manager are choosing certain tactic preset or mentality that isnt suitable. 

Maybe its limited to certain leagues, certain clubs etc... Thats for devs to decide. 

The water gets muddied when people confuse the issue with difficulty levels... That doesnt make sense in simulation. Its irrelevant whether or not i can add artificial layer of difficulty/ease... Im simply comparing fm18/19 to help SI. 

[Dagenham_Dave]

2 minutes ago, grasu said:

So, again, I'm not exactly sure why giving you more options to make the game harder and less casual, or easier and more casual, is such a bad idea. Si have already implemented FM Classic for more casual players, do you reckon creating 2 more settings that makes some things harder or easier would be so much more work than a new mode entirely? I highly doubt it.

Classic mode isn't easier. It was designed as a standalone mode for those who didn't have time for everything in the full game. The core game is exactly the same as the main game (database, players, teams, tactics etc). 

What you're requiring is for multiple different games to be implemented in one, it's completely impractical and also totally unnecessary when there are multiple ways you can make the game easier or harder for yourself as it is. 

 

[iAlwaysWin]

8 minutes ago, dannysheard said:

Because I support Liverpool... why would a Liverpool fan buy a football game to go and immediately play as a different team.

Step 1. Engage brain.

Step 2. Speak.

i support rangers and i went chelsea on the beta, i also like to move around clubs and try to conquer other leagues, if ive built a unbelievable team i tend to move on to another team that needs rebuilding, i always keep my career fresh, you want a challenge....your not going to get that building a super team with liverpool and never testing urself.

[grasu]

2 minutes ago, Dagenham_Dave said:

Classic mode isn't easier. It was designed as a standalone mode for those who didn't have time for everything in the full game. The core game is exactly the same as the main game (database, players, teams, tactics etc). 

What you're requiring is for multiple different games to be implemented in one, it's completely impractical and also totally unnecessary when there are multiple ways you can make the game easier or harder for yourself as it is. 

  

There aren't "multiple ways" you can make the game harder. There is ONE way you can make the game harder for the duration of the 1st season: setting your reputation much lower than what the recommended reputation is. This effect disappears almost completely after 1 season when you get a massive boost in respect just because you spent 1 year at the club.

Choosing different teams, gimping yourself by signing only one type of player or doing anything else that's a user created challenge is separate from difficulty. 

I just want to play the game, as intended, and I want the game to work with against me as the developers intended. Since one of the major issues for this game is squad building AI, which is a much MUCH more complex thing to fix, then at best we can be given an alternative. And the relevance of FM Classic vs full-fat FM balancing cannot be overstated in this case. SI is, in effect, balancing 2 modes even if they're using the same DB so adding a few options to mix things up cannot, by any measurement, be harder or take more time.

[Dagenham_Dave]

There's never going to be difficulty levels in FM @grasu, and rightly so. It's completely the wrong type of thing for such a game. 

[santy001]

What even would be hard mode on FM?

Opposition players getting attributes boosted? Well then those aren't real representations of those players.

Would it be putting some kind of +50% penalty on all financial activities of your club? Well then it just becomes about financial management and football loses its relevance.

You have to remember, it's very easy for SI to create a game that we cannot beat. In fact, it's the easiest thing for any game developer to do, to put in an unbeatable "encounter" with the AI. The reason for this is that knowing how the game works, it could flip this and have it apply the definitive, in the game weakness to what you're putting up against it.

But even then, it just becomes a game of hot-switching tactics trying to catch the AI out before its next "reassessment" point or whatever it would do. 

- - -

I've seen something about how the point of game design isn't to try and stop players from beating the game, its to make sure the game is beaten by players in a way that is convincing yet satisfying. It's not really relevant to FM in many regards, yet at the same time sort of rings true.

[grasu]

OK, so if the relatively simple solution of difficulty levels is such a bad thing, then what is the solution to make the game harder? And I don't mean "change your team harder" but actually harder, where I can't take a mid-table Championship squad and make them a Top 4 side in 5 seasons?

[true_valiant]

2 minutes ago, santy001 said:

What even would be hard mode on FM?

Opposition players getting attributes boosted? Well then those aren't real representations of those players.

Would it be putting some kind of +50% penalty on all financial activities of your club? Well then it just becomes about financial management and football loses its relevance.

You have to remember, it's very easy for SI to create a game that we cannot beat. In fact, it's the easiest thing for any game developer to do, to put in an unbeatable "encounter" with the AI. The reason for this is that knowing how the game works, it could flip this and have it apply the definitive, in the game weakness to what you're putting up against it.

But even then, it just becomes a game of hot-switching tactics trying to catch the AI out before its next "reassessment" point or whatever it would do. 

- - -

I've seen something about how the point of game design isn't to try and stop players from beating the game, its to make sure the game is beaten by players in a way that is convincing yet satisfying. It's not really relevant to FM in many regards, yet at the same time sort of rings true.

A Stoke fan talking sense UTV

[westy8chimp]

55 minutes ago, iAlwaysWin said:

go qpr or someone.

Funny you mention QPR .. I did that last year and quit my save because of promotion first season. I was hoping to spend a decade in the division playing Matt Smith as TM for fun. I'm going to do QPR when full release comes out as a long term save.. but I imagine it will be even easier than FM18

 

[Kingstontom88]

32 minutes ago, grasu said:

Them adding more options would be the end? I'm curious how that works. Why would adding more options be an issue? 

This question of "it would take them more to balance" is irrelevant. Every year they release a new UI. This balancing doesn't come from one year to another, this feature is developed over years of development and only released when the developers consider it ready. And it doesn't take NEARLY anywhere as much as rebuilding or redesigning the UI every year (for example).

The vast majority of FM is simplified so that people can get their mojo on an not complain that they can't make whatever backwater village in England champions in 10 years. Every long term career is pretty much dead after the first 5 seasons with anything resembling a top 4 team and the game poses little to no challenge anymore, outside of Europe. 

So, again, I'm not exactly sure why giving you more options to make the game harder and less casual, or easier and more casual, is such a bad idea. Si have already implemented FM Classic for more casual players, do you reckon creating 2 more settings that makes some things harder or easier would be so much more work than a new mode entirely? I highly doubt it.

Whether its straightforward or not to introduce a 'hard' and 'easy' setting can only be answered by SI. For users, it depends what you want out of it - some get satisfaction taking teams to glory year after year, others decide a few years is enough and start a new save - some may have 10 saves an edition, others just one. Saying FM is simplified isn't necessarily true for a lot of players - some like yourself may find taking over the footballing world easy, others find it difficult - this forum is evidence for that. I'm not the best FM player and struggle to interpret match data when trying to fix problems and have only had moderate success over the years when trying to take lower league clubs up to the dizzying heights.

But I think even a 'hard' setting will have the same problem as what the game poses now - eventually, much like FIFA on World Class, you get used to it and overcome the issues. I guess it's about opinions - I would have zero interest and get no enjoyment whatsoever knowing I had a poorer transfer budget, players with less ability/poorer recovery times or every match I faced teams that were on steroids as it's just not realistic and completely the opposite of what I expect from a football management simulator.

If I want something arcade-like, I'll turn to FIFA - I go to FM for realism. Yes it has its flaws and isn't perfect like any game, but I think there is a balance when you enter the game and some are better at overcoming the challenges than others.

[phnompenhandy]

6 minutes ago, santy001 said:

What even would be hard mode on FM?

For me it would be nothing more or less than better AI. But then that's what SI are striving to do anyway. It does seem that something in the beta AI is imbalanced leading to a too-easy challenge for a lot more posters than have reported in previous years.

The ones who are finding the beta challenging seem mostly to be ones who have set themselves restrictive challenges, which is what I'm going to do, but I can understand that many gamers who don't frequent these forums might not think about that and lose interest in the game quite quickly if nothing is done.

[true_valiant]

2 minutes ago, phnompenhandy said:

For me it would be nothing more or less than better AI. But then that's what SI are striving to do anyway. It does seem that something in the beta AI is imbalanced leading to a too-easy challenge for a lot more posters than have reported in previous years.

The ones who are finding the beta challenging seem mostly to be ones who have set themselves restrictive challenges, which is what I'm going to do, but I can understand that many gamers who don't frequent these forums might not think about that and lose interest in the game quite quickly if nothing is done.

 

But you are ignoring people who are finding it difficult. I for example played the game yesterday across two saves and had no luck at all. One with Sunderland and another with Liverpool. I came to the froum to try and find what I was doing wrong. Instead I just find people saying its too easy. Thats far more likely to put people like me off in my opinion. 

[westy8chimp]

2 minutes ago, phnompenhandy said:

The ones who are finding the beta challenging seem mostly to be ones who have set themselves restrictive challenges, which is what I'm going to do, but I can understand that many gamers who don't frequent these forums might not think about that and lose interest in the game quite quickly if nothing is don

the Beta primarily is for testing (I know many of us are impatient and want to dive straight into a proper save). 

So one thing you can do which helps in terms of a thread like this... is play exactly how you did in your last save on FM18 … then you are comparing the difficulty directly (as well as by using same tactic seeing any differences [bugs/improvements] to roles etc)

So if you played as Village Fc with no badges and fog of war and it took you 15 seasons to get to level 20 in FM18... and using same tactics and management style you whizz through the divisions with back to back promotion... that would tell you its too easy right? Or certainly it would be true to say "fm 19 is significantly easier than fm 18 using these criteria" 

 

[phnompenhandy]

Just now, true_valiant said:

 

But you are ignoring people who are finding it difficult. I for example played the game yesterday across two saves and had no luck at all. One with Sunderland and another with Liverpool. I came to the froum to try and find what I was doing wrong. Instead I just find people saying its too easy. Thats far more likely to put people like me off in my opinion. 

Don't take this the wrong way, but that's actually good news to me! I don't have the beta so for the next week I'm just prowling the forums here trying to prepare myself.

[westy8chimp]

1 minute ago, true_valiant said:

 

But you are ignoring people who are finding it difficult. I for example played the game yesterday across two saves and had no luck at all. One with Sunderland and another with Liverpool. I came to the froum to try and find what I was doing wrong. Instead I just find people saying its too easy. Thats far more likely to put people like me off in my opinion. 

Did you play FM18? Did you find that easier, more difficult or the same? 

[santy001]

3 minutes ago, grasu said:

OK, so if the relatively simple solution of difficulty levels is such a bad thing, then what is the solution to make the game harder? And I don't mean "change your team harder" but actually harder, where I can't take a mid-table Championship squad and make them a Top 4 side in 5 seasons?

Here's the thing, if you've eclipsed the game and aren't finding it fun anymore the game isn't for you. That's not a negative, that's not something that needs changing, it just means over time your desire for the game has moved away from what the game is.

I don't particularly enjoy FM on my own, it's been that way for several years so now each year my main game is an FM Network game, because it's a straight up competition then between me and a mate. It makes it a lot harder to become dominant when there's other people involved.

- - -

The reality is that scouting in the game makes it too easy to identify negative players, injury proneness can be scouted for a 17 year old who has never been injured. Negative personality traits are clear before any issue arises from them. These things need better masking, but its tough to find the right way to do it and will take time. Unfortunately, but that's the way it is. 

There are many elements of the game that get improvements over time, but that does still take time. There isn't these ready made modules of code just sat around for SI to pick up and plug into FM. When you pull off an insane transfer that's unlikely, are you logging it as a bug? When your formation romps through the league uncontested are you uploading it and flagging what exactly you think is wrong there? There's a lot of people who can sit and say FM is too easy, but there's not so many who put it into any meaningful context, in a condensed one-post with evidence parcel for the folks at SI to look at.

[pats]

An update on my Bremen save. Currently sitting 2nd in the league after 11 games, just 2 points behind Leipzig. I just can't stop winning. I'm watching matches in full btw.

[forameuss]

4 minutes ago, phnompenhandy said:

For me it would be nothing more or less than better AI. But then that's what SI are striving to do anyway. It does seem that something in the beta AI is imbalanced leading to a too-easy challenge for a lot more posters than have reported in previous years.

The ones who are finding the beta challenging seem mostly to be ones who have set themselves restrictive challenges, which is what I'm going to do, but I can understand that many gamers who don't frequent these forums might not think about that and lose interest in the game quite quickly if nothing is done.

That's the only decent route they can take, but even then that's not a "difficulty mode", as it would just be the norm.

Anything being added to modify behaviour to artificially add difficulty (or take it away) would be a terrible idea.

1 minute ago, true_valiant said:

But you are ignoring people who are finding it difficult. I for example played the game yesterday across two saves and had no luck at all. One with Sunderland and another with Liverpool. I came to the froum to try and find what I was doing wrong. Instead I just find people saying its too easy. Thats far more likely to put people like me off in my opinion. 

Get where you're coming from, but I don't think that attitude is universal.  You're not going to be the only one finding it difficult, I'd guarantee that.  The tactics forum likely has very helpful people where you're not going to get the OMG ITZ ALL SO EAZY groups.

And generally, I wouldn't worry what other people are saying.  That's one of the worst things about these forums in the way opinions can be transmitted needlessly.  The only opinion that really matters is yours - as long as you're having fun, that's all that matters.  And if you don't enjoy the game because you don't feel you're "getting" it or whatever, then that's fine too.  Just because someone moans that they won 400 trophies in the first season shouldn't mean you let yourself get affected by it.  You do you.

[iAlwaysWin]

12 minutes ago, grasu said:

OK, so if the relatively simple solution of difficulty levels is such a bad thing, then what is the solution to make the game harder? And I don't mean "change your team harder" but actually harder, where I can't take a mid-table Championship squad and make them a Top 4 side in 5 seasons?

what makes you think it shoud be made imposiable to take a championship side to the top 4 in the premiership in 5 seasons, its totally possiable in football, anything is possiable, and i question how easy this would be for the average player.