...Anyone else just too successful?

[johnsie]

Despite the claims of some I believe FM continues to be a simple and limited game to play tactically. Furthermore, while making a few intelligent (and lucky) squad moves I haven't done much with my player roster either. I'm slaughtering domestic sides that are supposed to be equal and better and I'm winning in Europe against what should be much better teams just as impressively. I am a supporter of a serious degree of unrealism, especially in enabling players to build up and advance their teams well beyond what you would see in real life (the Greeces and Leicesters are few and far between), but I'm starting to scratch my head. Even my mix of A and B players won a Champions League game 2-0 with better stats they would have no business winning, especially being the better team. It's not like I've done much of anything and presumably at this point realism would be a very strong factor (I'm in my second season), yet teams of comparable quality and teams better than mine, sometimes teams that should be much better than mine, are turning into disasters. It's enjoyable, but very strange.

Again despite the claims of some here I know this game is far from realistic. The club that has been ruling my domestic league for years irl was over 20 points behind me by mid-season in the first season, I presume to a large extent because of how match fatigue is simulated and how the AI managers cope. They didn't have injuries to speak of. The advert that was supposed to be the Neville vs other guy on SkySports turned out to convey the game ridiculously. Not only was the silliness of interaction on display with the handful of canned lines (fortunately the canned responses that are less contextual and more either positive or negative in conflict with the particular meanings of the used descriptors were not exposed), a 4-4 result between two teams comprised of identical defenders with spectacular goals being scored left and right made the game look like a joke. Sure, the goalkeepers were those same defenders. But so were the strikers and midfielders versus the defenders, and those goals were season highlights.

I'm wondering what people's impressions are. While I enjoy watching something like football, and I do believe the ME has gotten significantly better at showing that, and while I do like certain other aspects of the game time and time again FM doesn't have longevity for me. In actuality your options are very limited, and at some point you're just passively sitting there the whole time. Whether you're getting bad results and are exasperated in your efforts to change things or you're getting good results for no involving reason the game runs out of steam, quicker than some forum posters.

[LukasZ_VCF]

Which team you are playing and what tactic?

 

Can't see it is true without reloading games to easy win CL or EL...and more even with "B team players" that are probably bench players or from reserves..."

 

Liverpool seems like the strongest team in FM 19, Man City, Psg or Bayern they are making so expensive transfers and have great teams...

[DiasV]

The AI is rather limited, so being a team like Cagliari, Fulham, Espanyol or something similar makes it rather easy to be a serious title challenger within 2-3 seasons without doing much more than buying and selling some players to fit your prefered formation. A typical savegame for me with such a club is a 5-6 place first season (wich is far to easy to achieve), maybe a 3-4 place 2nd season and usually a title in the 3rd season. The best AI teams are to weak when it comes to take advantage of their best players. A player like Messi usually dont score more than maybe 20 goals playing under AI manager, same with Ronaldo, if I have an average striker like Mitrovic in PL I easily make him score around 30 goals a season. 

[LukasZ_VCF]

Yes league is easy to win I was 2nd in first season with Valencia, 97 points - 3 points behind Barcelona, in 2nd I won with many points difference before 2nd team which was Atletico M.

In third I will win now in 99% , but he was talking about CL or EL...

[johnsie]

I play with Levski Sofia in Bulgaria. We've managed to hang around the top three irl but relatively speaking we kind of suck or suck. You may have seen a club called Ludogorets in Europe, that's the team that has been owning the league and on a consistent basis has performed much better than other Bulgarian teams have in Europe. They came out of nowhere after they were taken over by people with money, you know the story. I've both been beating the crap out of their team and smoked them in the standings. I managed my squad as I normally do. I see what players I have and make a formation based on them, usually playing them in their preferred roles. I bought a right back to have two at the position and got a good, short of great, DM for next to nothing who fell on my lap. That's about it. I play with an asymmetrical formation most of the time with a central DM, right central MC, and left central ACM along with AM side players/wingers and one forward. I've also been using a 4-2-3-1 to accommodate essentially two line-ups this second season, hence the A and B team.

I ran into PSV Eindhoven in the third qualifying round of the Champions League and crushed them 4-1 at home. Crushed Slavia Prague 4-1 at home in the playoff too, and I think I beat a Romanian team that might've been better 4-1 at home as well. Aggregates not in order were 5-2, 5-3, and Slavia Prague was the only team that put me under pressure winning 3-1 at home with 3 goals in 9 minutes. I murder competitive Bulgarian sides on a regular basis with these scores, including Ludogorets. First game in the Champions League I beat Olympiakos 2-0 at home with an A-B mix as I've selected all my younger players, including two players just promoted from my youth academy to the main squad (and a keeper), to play in the CL for training/development benefits. I figure I can't ultimately do anything in Europe so the domestic league should take priority, which it does with the board. Funny thing is my CL group is remarkably weak, not in comparison to my team but in general, and I may very well be able to finish in the top two, I think likely in the top three, if I wanted to prioritize it. Been virtually injury free since I started playing, although three of my best players began the game out for months. Some of that good luck can change.

I really don't know what AI teams are doing wrong given there's not much to do right as a human manager either.

[JordanMilly]

6 hours ago, LukasZ_VCF said:

Yes league is easy to win I was 2nd in first season with Valencia, 97 points - 3 points behind Barcelona, in 2nd I won with many points difference before 2nd team which was Atletico M.

In third I will win now in 99% , but he was talking about CL or EL...

To be fair, Valencia is a good team, they won the league in season one during my Dortmund save.

[Captain_al]

I play lower league and I'm certainly not finding that to be the case

[lckyby]

Long shots, intensive pressing and crossing seem to be very overpowered, so yes it's a very easy edition of the game right now.

For the past few days I've been tweaking a tactic based on a real-life manager. I simulate through a season with no transfers to test it out...

Girona: predicted 13th, finished 4th with 66pts, 83f, 62a
Frosinone: predicted 17th, finished 6th with 63pts, 60f, 45a
Sassuolo: predicted 10th, finished 4th with 75pts, 74f, 39a
Nimes: predicted 20th, finished 5th with 66pts, 80f, 47a
Udinese: predicted 11th, finished 3rd with 80pts, 89f, 42a

 

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[phnompenhandy]

2 hours ago, Captain_al said:

I play lower league and I'm certainly not finding that to be the case

This is the secret. The game can become too easy too quickly, so to maintain interest, you need to set yourself proper challenges.

I'm managing a part-time lower league side and have set myself an 'academy challenge'. That means I ONLY use the kids that come through my academy and do not bring in through transfers, loans or free agents any player. Believe me, that it not an easy way to get success.

[johnsie]

Where does the AI fail so much? I don't make many changes or adaptations.

[Captain_al]

2 hours ago, johnsie said:

Where does the AI fail so much? I don't make many changes or adaptations.

No disrespect but the Bulgarian league lacks quality out with the top teams (like a lot of leagues) you've matches ludogrets so you've surpassed the domestic competition. Time to move clubs or load up a new game

 

 Finding I'm having to create tactics a few times each season to keep things fresh and keep me out the relegation zone.

 

Example, I played a 4-3-3 "long banger" tactic which due to my poor quality players /opposition consisted of me just using constant long ball missing midfield and on very attacking constantly hammering balls into the box to varied success. I went on a winning run generally outscoring teams but the AI managers soon got wise.

 

[DiasV]

6 hours ago, phnompenhandy said:

This is the secret. The game can become too easy too quickly, so to maintain interest, you need to set yourself proper challenges.

I'm managing a part-time lower league side and have set myself an 'academy challenge'. That means I ONLY use the kids that come through my academy and do not bring in through transfers, loans or free agents any player. Believe me, that it not an easy way to get success.

Of course, its no problem making the game hard, but then - as you have done - you have to give yourself big disadvantages. It should be more than hard enough winning the epl with a team like Fulham....in fact it should  be almost impossible (like in real life), but as it is now its almost impossible not to win it within 3-4 seasons without doing anything else than buy a couple of players fitting your system and make a tactic that gives lots of crosses and intensive pressing. 

[johnsie]

4 hours ago, Captain_al said:

No disrespect but the Bulgarian league lacks quality out with the top teams (like a lot of leagues) you've matches ludogrets so you've surpassed the domestic competition. Time to move clubs or load up a new game

No disrespect but you should take some more time to read the premise and understand the problem. I haven't had time to "matches" Ludogorets, a superior team, as I've buried them from the start to the tune of 20+ points by mid-season, blowouts, and continue to do so in my second season with basically my initial team. Just crushed them 5-1 in the Bulgarian Supercup and while they are on my heels after the first several league matches chances are it won't take very long for me to separate. Not only have I surpassed the better domestic competition I reached the Champions League thumping the likes of PSV Eindhoven 4-1 and winning my first group game despite playing three players I promoted from the internationally respected Levski Sofia youth academy and selecting the remaining players based on age, which excluded my top two performers albeit the rest of the players are top choices or competitive in their positions.

Resorting to silly tactics and challenges is no solution to the issue. I have seen much resistance to different development approaches aimed at branching the game out on the premise of realism when the game continues to be very unrealistic, not to mention the playing suggestions. Perhaps at some point the wise thing to do would be to compromise on the goals and develop with in part a focus on gameplay that may embellish on or diverge from realism. Realistically Levski Sofia would be stuck, just like most other teams everywhere. I don't think most of us would be happy with this state either. Two broad things pop up in my mind. One, different game world set-ups for different challenges. No, not the one challenge of taking an amateur team to the top. How about the challenge of making a long term Arsenal save fun without forcing yourself to play with 4 forwards, 4 midfielders, and 2 defenders or limiting yourself to only three-and-a-half-star youth players because you need to keep playing this game for some reason? Another set-up could be tailored to a country like Bulgaria, making the first seasons realistic while having some sort of change occurring that lifts the whole league and furthermore gives you an avenue to make your team internationally relevant too. In previous FM editions I stop playing after a maximum of five to six seasons as the league is over, and often it takes significantly fewer seasons than that for it to be over, and at that point I was knocking Chelsea and Fiorentina out of the Europa Cup post-groups stage. Then I was powerless against Club Brugge and one of my ACMs just wouldn't stop shooting at the side of the net every single game and I was done. My second broad idea is doing something more with the complexity of the game. You can talk about the per se combinations that exist but in practice the options are very few, and worse still I haven't had much success seeing any effective patterns in adapting to opponents. So sooner rather than later you're playing as more of a spectator, I would imagine most of us continuing to do so because we enjoy watching football and having at least some power and ownership over what happens, imagined as it may be. I think a really good management game needs to ramp up control to other levels. Anyone actually have a good idea of what irl professional managers do? I'm curious if their jobs are boring too.

[phnompenhandy]

To DiasV:

That's a valid argument. I guess the counter-argument is that the likes of you and I will find ways to tweak the game to make it satisfactory for us, but casual players have to be catered for and there are many who are busy and not committed enough to do more than pick it up, play and want quick returns.

[johnsie]

Except in these cases the "casual" players are astronomically more successful than is realistic. And the whatever you think you are players resort to forcing their teams to hoof the ball up and down the pitch in order to keep playing the most realistic football simulation in the world with a semblance of challenge. It is a wondrous paradox, how you managed to place yourself above me in the process I have zero idea. You are not any sort of hardcore player. The problem is the game is not hardcore. That is very much a game development issue, and no sort of twisted logic can deny that. It is neither hardcore nor realistic.

[Captain_al]

Seems you are just desperate to lambast the game.

I used to be seriously into FM, I won't go into details but I've played a lot. Less so now.

 

But I've always found players will take what they want from the game. Some will flat out use editors, some will replay the odd match. I personally don't and have never found it overly simple. My mammoth successes have been few but then it usually takes me years to get out lower leagues.

 

I think this year's is one of the best yet. (With a few annoying things like stadium graphics) the gameplay been pretty reasonable with few freak results .

 

I think it's flexible enough that "hardcore" and "casual" gamers can take what they want from it.

 

Now you don't have to prove yourself to me but if you've found this particular Bulgarian save too easy then why not set yourself a different challenge.

 

Starting no badges and unemployed is generally my favoured approach. Generally the finicial restrictions alone will prevent anyone from succeeding this way too rapidly. I can't agine anyone would call it easy.

 

I hope you find a new save or way of playing that suits your needs better. As others have suggested maybe a specific challenge this time?

 

I guess at the end of the day they'll never please 100% of players, 100% of the time :-)

 

[johnsie]

I'd say you're much more desperate to defend it and shift the blame onto players. The things I'm stating from my save are thoroughly unrealistic and are unhealthy. Other posters have given other examples, and I'd imagine most of us with considerable experience know how unrealistically low the challenge is. These are facts, what you're offering are excuses. Perhaps you tend to always manage lower league teams and take them to the top, finding sufficient challenge therein to stick around, but this is not a good thing. While it should remain possible many players would rather find the challenge in managing their favorite teams, and I'm not just referring to the best teams. To the contrary, the game is inflexible. The things "hardcore" players need to resort to in finding a challenge and the successes of "casual" players show the game to be consistently off-balance.

Why is it on me to find a contrived challenge? This game isn't my job, why is it a virtue to desperately try to find a way to play longer? How are you so easy on the developers? You're seriously turning this into you can't please 100% of players 100% of the time talking about complete unrealism? I really don't understand the mentality of some people to so desperately defend the status quo. You do know everything described in this thread, including how your saves go over time, is completely unrealistic, right? And you blame the players? : - )

[Svenc]

Tbf, the game is advertised as "win any title in the world with any side in the world" (or something like that) right on ist Steam store page -- to an audience of generally football fans. Also, tbf, there have Always been varioius ways that make this the easiest Management game series ever created, basically bop in, hit the space bar, don't even sub a player and see your forwards no matter who bang in the Goals. Generally, unless SI would start considering different Levels of AI Catering to specific desires (or castrating the sections where humans will Always have the Edge, e.g. in particular micro tweaking), not gonna happen much. And that's in both directions.  As same as on any game, there are also Players who consider things to be "too hard" -- sometimes even when they big time outperform said AI without realizing, as perhaps during the "glory days" of CM01/02 climbing bottom top may have taken less time (who cares if the AI was ever able to do this).  

[DaveMac]

Lols at the whole “I’m just soooo amazing at the game” stuff. Personally I find it hard. But then again I don’t have the hours to really plough into it like before. I like tinkering with tactics. But after a while will just find one I like the look of on here and download it. I think the beauty of FM is there are so many different ways to judge success. I’m a spurs fan and will always try and get that job and for me once I have the game kind of loses it’s appeal to me. But I think in world football there are so many challenges that don’t just end in a couple of seasons of winning the league. Also those who do find it easy feel free to share your tactical tips as I’m always rubbish!!

[mightypvfc]

Agree with the OP. FM has always been one of those games when once you figure out how to win, the challenge is gone. I generally shouldn't have to play the game using a silly tactic or managing Berwick Rangers and only signing youth players. Why would I want to play this way? Does the AI play this way? If the game can't keep my attention then I'm gone. I did make a thread about dynamic game difficulty balancing (DGDB - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_game_difficulty_balancing) and was told the game doesn't care about the player and will continue on regardless. I hope this wasn't true as once the player goes, the game ends.  Also, I recall a comment from a developer stating that injuries are toned down to around 85%. I've gone through seasons and had half of my first team never pick up an injury. This is ridiculous considering high intensity , professional football is demanding on every muscle in the body. How can a player never pick up an injury? I now cannot play this game without tweaking the injury frequency using the editor. What's wrong with realism SI? The nature of a simulation game is to mimic it's real-life counterpart is it not?

[Phillybear]

1 hour ago, mightypvfc said:

What's wrong with realism SI? The nature of a simulation game is to mimic it's real-life counterpart is it not?

Nobody would play the game if they get sacked after winning La Liga at Real Madrid or Champions League at Chelsea. Real life isn't very popular. The reason injury get toned down is because of all the complaints every year about "too much injury".

[qwerty22]

The casuals should use touch and mobile to win everything in sight, The hardcore bunch would naturally play in classic mode.

The problem with classic mode is that it’s becoming so shallow with the AI weaknesses and the simplistic ME, Which shoul’ve been prioratized over other off the pitch features IMHO.

[johnsie]

13 hours ago, Svenc said:

Tbf, the game is advertised as "win any title in the world with any side in the world" (or something like that) right on ist Steam store page -- to an audience of generally football fans. Also, tbf, there have Always been varioius ways that make this the easiest Management game series ever created, basically bop in, hit the space bar, don't even sub a player and see your forwards no matter who bang in the Goals. Generally, unless SI would start considering different Levels of AI Catering to specific desires (or castrating the sections where humans will Always have the Edge, e.g. in particular micro tweaking), not gonna happen much. And that's in both directions.  As same as on any game, there are also Players who consider things to be "too hard" -- sometimes even when they big time outperform said AI without realizing, as perhaps during the "glory days" of CM01/02 climbing bottom top may have taken less time (who cares if the AI was ever able to do this).  

I think even "tweaking" the match engine can accomplish a lot in giving a bigger advantage to better players. Furthermore, like I've said, I don't do much of anything. I don't believe it's impossible to have a better common sense algorithm for the AI.

10 hours ago, DaveMac said:

Lols at the whole “I’m just soooo amazing at the game” stuff. Personally I find it hard. But then again I don’t have the hours to really plough into it like before. I like tinkering with tactics. But after a while will just find one I like the look of on here and download it. I think the beauty of FM is there are so many different ways to judge success. I’m a spurs fan and will always try and get that job and for me once I have the game kind of loses it’s appeal to me. But I think in world football there are so many challenges that don’t just end in a couple of seasons of winning the league. Also those who do find it easy feel free to share your tactical tips as I’m always rubbish!!

Given my impression of the state of the game I find tactics for download very pretentious. There are so few options you can either come up with these tactics on your own or you can have more success with one of your own. I tried tinkering with tactics, going over all the options and trying to play with a broad range of values when I first started playing but found insufficient reason to continue doing so, not to mention the biggest difference was probably made by tactical familiarity (in essence a tactical experience player attribute) rather than any sort of particularly clever thinking. Since then I do make some changes but they're basic as you'd expect and especially given the preferred roles of players I really don't see the point or potential of significant tinkering. It's a combination of it being hard to perceive effects, even when you watch full match, simpler changes being effective and thus further confounding your thinking, and the seeming lack of options on top. I tried looking for the potential of this game at first, now my opinion is there just isn't much. My best tactical tip for you is to start with your squad. See what players you have at what positions. Is this the squad you'll have to do with or can you make significant signings and perhaps even sell players to change it? Once you have a squad, fit it to a formation from scratch. Stop looking to download tactics or picking premade tactics. It really isn't that big of a deal. At the beginning you have to use full match at least partially. Try seeing what's happening and don't forget your squad's limitations; any tactic may be unable to make you a winner. Focus on contested and winnable matches to judge. You may also find that changing your approach to different types of games makes sense, for instance in changing those lines and the mentality, even going to a different formation. Perhaps often you might find changes to make little desirable difference on the pitch and to not even make much sense but that's the game. I really don't believe choosing a premade tactic is the proper way to go in FM. Consider the time you would put into arriving at a decent tactic as critical and enjoyable gameplay. You will have plenty more time to watch highlights and clicking the continue button, settling into a rather dull routine. Get your money's worth by milking what the game enables you to do tactically; take your time in organizing your squad in your mind, making a tactic around it, then testing and making changes. That's one of those things new editions of this game actually give you to anticipate and extract some reward from. You'll have plenty of time to feel like a dumbass playing this game subsequently. Don't take the people on the tactics forum who might imply that the game is richly complex seriously. What I've outlined is a very doable individual task that is rather important for you to maximize the value of this game.

5 hours ago, mightypvfc said:

Agree with the OP. FM has always been one of those games when once you figure out how to win, the challenge is gone. I generally shouldn't have to play the game using a silly tactic or managing Berwick Rangers and only signing youth players. Why would I want to play this way? Does the AI play this way? If the game can't keep my attention then I'm gone. I did make a thread about dynamic game difficulty balancing (DGDB - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_game_difficulty_balancing) and was told the game doesn't care about the player and will continue on regardless. I hope this wasn't true as once the player goes, the game ends.  Also, I recall a comment from a developer stating that injuries are toned down to around 85%. I've gone through seasons and had half of my first team never pick up an injury. This is ridiculous considering high intensity , professional football is demanding on every muscle in the body. How can a player never pick up an injury? I now cannot play this game without tweaking the injury frequency using the editor. What's wrong with realism SI? The nature of a simulation game is to mimic it's real-life counterpart is it not?

I'm not convinced about the need for "dynamic game difficulty balancing". I'm inclined to believe a tweaked ME, decent AI, and different game world conditions can make for a persistent challenge. Perhaps the conditions can be dynamic depending on the course of a game but it's really not that difficult for the game to be challenging. I'm pretty sure SI can bury us if they wanted to, ironically by making a more realistic Football Manager. Being helpless isn't a proper challenge either.

As for injuries, I'm noticing them being down too. Not something I hate though. Thought I was just doing a decent job and to some extent getting lucky. Injuries can be very tough, although in part that may be because we might not appreciate how the AI is affected. Definitely not enjoyable to get your team, and even your future screwed because your key players are unavailable, and attributes with injuries are a bitch. I'd argue recovery and bouncing back isn't very realistic. I bet it can also be shown that SI may not be able to simulate players who fill in very well. It's pretty clear already that from year to year current ability and potential are gotten wrong in many cases.

41 minutes ago, qwerty22 said:

The casuals should use touch and mobile to win everything in sight, The hardcore bunch would naturally play in classic mode.

The problem with classic mode is that it’s becoming so shallow with the AI weaknesses and the simplistic ME, Which shoul’ve been prioratized over other off the pitch features IMHO.

So how should the ME be more complex?

[Svenc]

3 hours ago, johnsie said:

I think even "tweaking" the match engine can accomplish a lot in giving a bigger advantage to better players. Furthermore, like I've said, I don't do much of anything. I don't believe it's impossible to have a better common sense algorithm for the AI.

The best players on this hold a measurable edge over (AI) opponents unheard of in all history of competitive Sports. Measurable as in: consistently seasonal shot to goal Advantages to be displayed in the team reports, etc. that are unheard of in all Sports regardless of the forwards. This is precisely because the AI does and will always lack on the Micro Management in particular. I much agree with you that the AI could be coded much better "common sense" though, as simply applying common sense oft provides you an edge over AI (on the purely tactical front). This goes for FM 19 also. (link of an example) The actual benchmark as of the AI isn't so much how long it takes to win stuff if ever. The actual benchmark as to AI is what do you accomplish with a Squad, and what does the AI accomplish with the same squad. 

However, given that SI for sure have received Feedback on their AI for years on end, it seems they are real hesistant to improve too much. The more "casually" commited Player at "worst" complains every now and then if Guardiola managed sides don't have likek 60% Possession plus every match -- or when the performance of top teams is over the place (not in one-offs, but with some consistency). If I personally were to introduce "Natural" difficult Levels as to FM, I'd do it via the assistants. There are ample Reports of Managers assigning Tasks in real Football -- some of them (co-)developing the entire playing style of the Clubs (ten Cate at Barcelona, etc.). Likewise, they could carry out other Micro Tasks, such as the Manager deciding to "push for another Goal" and then the assistant doing the Micro tweaks. Actually, it's possible to go on Holiday day one and come out successful.. however, the assistant System could be much developed -- and more importantly, assistants would improve with improved AI likewise, as eventually, they are all AI Managers just the same. 

Not my decision though.

 

edit: More recently I have a suspicious there is another reason why SI are hesistant how much they reall improve the AI though. It's outlined in this article, and go check how many times the AI on this is accused of "cheating" despite all -- in particular when it takes Points in a match in which it had far fewer shots. There are thousands FM Players who have yet not realized that the AI on the Occasion does this as it already holds an Edge. Unlike (many) human Players Setting out to dominate Possession and/or shot Counts, the AI sets up to defend/attack spaces. It's admittedly far too rigidly applied defensive tactics are all About making it harder for the Opposition to score, sacrificying most attacking oomph. For as Long as you can't field30 out field Players, this will remain a balancing act as to FM also. Likewise, when it finally concedes, it may finally push for the goal and on occasion succed, rather than sitting on thta loss. https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/116071/Analysis_Game_AI__Our_Cheatin_Hearts.php 

[johnsie]

I haven't done much of any micro-management. I also don't understand your first example, particularly where you claim that the AI is putting five players behind the ball and human managers aren't (you can barely control that).

[Svenc]

7 minutes ago, johnsie said:

I haven't done much of any micro-management. I also don't understand your first example, particularly where you claim that the AI is putting five players behind the ball and human managers aren't (you can barely control that).

You can and Always could. It's giving Players a defend Duty and/or a hold positioin instruction. The first screenshot was only a criticism geared towards the AI's defensive tactics in General -- the second example is one I mean of "common sense" Violation. Not only makes it any AI Prey on the counter -- it als usually hurts ist likelyhood of scoring alike. Basically, draw a circle around all the purple Players having advanced. This isn't only the area the purple Team can operate in, it's also the same area the defending team needs to defend. IT's rather small. No matter who receives the ball here, he's immediately pushed. This is team Sports common sense in any Sports rather than any "tactical nous", not merely Football.

[johnsie]

I couldn't figure out which team was supposed to be behind the ball. So you have a beef with the 21 not marking the other 21, which still wouldn't place him behind the ball? I still don't get it. Aside from the 21 being loose, which we don't know how it occurred, that seems fairly normal. It's an AMR in possession with either a trapping defensive line or following a long pass not giving the defense much time to retreat. I don't see much wrong in that screenshot.

[Svenc]

4 minutes ago, johnsie said:

I couldn't figure out which team was supposed to be behind the ball. So you have a beef with the 21 not marking the other 21, which still wouldn't place him behind the ball? I still don't get it. 

Ignore the first shot, it was merely a criticism at a) how unrealistically defensive AI Teams oft are and b) how readily they apply such tactics. They have both their fullbacks and their entire backline plus a central mid parking behind the ball is all. If you ever have a big amount of matches that are "statistically" completely one-sided to the Degree that the AI barely if ever records a single shot, here's the reason for it. Sorry for that. The second example is a bit more tricky, in particular as FM19 isn't the first in more recent iterations here. In a sense, it's and AI Downgrade from ca. Fm13, even. By FM12, SI had classed AI pushing all midfielders forward as a "Bug", and noted that it would hurt ist Performance. So they fixed that. Ever since about FM16ish, it's in again and can on occasion happen for some odd reason. However, yeah, AI must be cheating !!!!  

[johnsie]

What are they supposed to do on defense?

[Brady84]

On 29/12/2018 at 14:54, LukasZ_VCF said:

Which team you are playing and what tactic?

Can't see it is true without reloading games to easy win CL or EL...and more even with "B team players" that are probably bench players or from reserves..."

Liverpool seems like the strongest team in FM 19, Man City, Psg or Bayern they are making so expensive transfers and have great teams...

There are just so many tactics that make the game "easy" (don't even use gegenpress) I would be surprised if you couldn't reach the CL final with any of the bigger teams 1st season even without spending any money. With Rangers (and no save scumming, based on game information I saved once every 8 hours) 1st season I reached the EL Semi (won the first leg 4-0 and then lost 6-0 away against Inter) 2nd season I lost in the Semi of the CL To Athletico- who finished 2nd in my group (Won 3-1 and lost 5-2 away) With a first 11 on a combined £145k a week, only buying free transfers and a max wage of 25k.

Been thinking about playing an EPL save for a while, but can't decide who to actually play to keep the long term enjoyment, at least the rest of the teams will spend big money to keep it somewhat competitive.

[Preveza]

All comes down to poor AI squad management. AI simply is below average. Yes the human manager is much more adept, but the AI is still not where it should be. Game becomes too easy after a couple seasons. Rinse wash repeat. Buy some players, get rid of dead wood and the title is yours. (sooner rather than later with ANY side in the game).

[s1111]

This was the league table from my first season with Sporting. Porto and Benfica got 88 and 81 points IRL last season and are heading for similar this season, so in the game they are both underperforming by about 10-15 points. It's the first season so it's not that they've even had a chance to ruin their squads with awful squad management yet. The AI simply doesn't seem capable of competently managing big clubs which removes any real challenge from the game because the points totals required to win league titles or qualify for the CL are so low. I didn't even do that well myself as 81 points is a fairly low total to win the league in Portugal. Most of my dropped points were against mid table teams, but against Porto and Benfica I got 3 wins and a draw. I don't see the point of continuing the save because where's the challenge or sense of achievement?

We're in an era of superclubs dominating and winning multiple consecutive league titles with 100 points but the game can't get close to replicating this. If we have to artificially handicap ourselves to create a challenge what's the point of continuing to play or buy the game?

[johnsie]

A decent starting point for ameliorating this is understanding what human managers tend to do and comparing to AI behavior. I know in my case I don't do much. Sure there's some intelligence but it's not sophisticated and an "AI" should be able to behave similarly. It's a rather basic algorithm from afar in my opinion. What do you all do?

[Brady84]

40 minutes ago, johnsie said:

A decent starting point for ameliorating this is understanding what human managers tend to do and comparing to AI behavior. I know in my case I don't do much. Sure there's some intelligence but it's not sophisticated and an "AI" should be able to behave similarly. It's a rather basic algorithm from afar in my opinion. What do you all do?

the AI behavior regarding transfers and team selection is baffling,

They spend silly money on a players and never even play them, Most I've spent on a player is 2m, Looking at the players I've sold.. £16m for Gaudino has played 8 games in 2 seasons, £14m for flanigan (15 games). Looking at others teams, Pavlenka (a 28yr GK i've never heard of has been at both PSG & Chelsea (with £30+m in transfer fee's and has never played a game), Icardi & Milinkovic-Savic average 10 games a season for £100m each. Tierney bought for £36m averages 10 games a season, Madrid bought Srabia for £30m and less than a year later sold him for £10m, They also bought Rodrygo for £40m and he plays in the reserves, Spurs dropped £40m on Nunez he averages 5 games a season

They also buy "average" players in positions where they already have numerous players or that don't even fit into their formation & let the better players they have leave rather than offer them new contracts. City play 2 CM's, have 11 already at the club and just spent £150m on another 2 (13 total for 2 positions) they currently have 10 players in their 1st team who can't even play (25 squad limit) while on the otherside Fulham don't even have enough players to fill the bench

[johnsie]

I actually thought things were improving. I remember in FM14 it was pretty bad, I was buying very talented young players for next to nothing and all Ludogorets did was dismantle their team. I think one thing that has definitely changed, where I play at least, is that you can't acquire players as ridiculously. I also like how your knowledge/vision is now limited, insofar as I don't have to feel like a complete moron when I get into a multiplayer game and it turns out all you need to do is search for a defender with high tackling and marking at a young age and you end up playing the game how it's supposed to be played.

[Things Could Get Messi]

Taken Lincoln City from League 2 at the start to this finish in 7 seasons. Got lucky with a regen striker in the 1st intake and he has been a regular starter since League One. I've done really well on past FM's but I feel proud of my efforts especially this season. Chelsea's 90th minute winner against me at Stamford Bridge on match day 34 proved to be the pivotal moment in a great title race. The top sides all spend huge amounts compared to my club. I only had 5 players in my squad this season who were not British and one of those was only on loan. Meanwhile, my young lad up front was the 2nd top scorer in the PL (finishing 1 goal behind Icardi who cost Man Utd £99m!), passed 100 league goals for the club and got a couple of England caps. 

Not going to get myself too excited as the extra games we've got to play in the Champions League are likely to make it a bigger challenge to repeat a top 4 finish. My summer transfer window has just started with Declan Rice moving to Man Utd for £49m with Jadon Sancho moving the other way for £24m. 

[Preveza]

4 hours ago, Things Could Get Messi said:

Taken Lincoln City from League 2 at the start to this finish in 7 seasons. Got lucky with a regen striker in the 1st intake and he has been a regular starter since League One. I've done really well on past FM's but I feel proud of my efforts especially this season. Chelsea's 90th minute winner against me at Stamford Bridge on match day 34 proved to be the pivotal moment in a great title race. The top sides all spend huge amounts compared to my club. I only had 5 players in my squad this season who were not British and one of those was only on loan. Meanwhile, my young lad up front was the 2nd top scorer in the PL (finishing 1 goal behind Icardi who cost Man Utd £99m!), passed 100 league goals for the club and got a couple of England caps. 

Not going to get myself too excited as the extra games we've got to play in the Champions League are likely to make it a bigger challenge to repeat a top 4 finish. My summer transfer window has just started with Declan Rice moving to Man Utd for £49m with Jadon Sancho moving the other way for £24m. 

Unrealistic. Shouldnt happen within just 7 seasons. Poor AI

[johnsie]

The particularly interesting thing here is that big teams are spending much more than him and he's still using mostly domestic players, meaning the talent in his squad is significantly inferior, it was acquired well under value, or the AI does the sort of nonsense described in one of the recent posts with respect to player acquisition and use. I want to make it clear that I believe taking teams from the bottom to the top over time is something to be preserved or enabled, but when it becomes one of the only sort of enduring challenges that's a bad indication. I also don't really see how you can incorporate everything you'd like to see in a single set of "stuff", hence why I believe you need to work on differentiating saves and having players choose what kind of challenge they would like to experience. This is the reality of a game in my opinion, otherwise you're always looking at serious trade-offs.

[oblongata21]

First season with Newcastle i thought i was being to succesful, i ended up finishing 6th, and was sitting in the top 3 for the first three quarters of the season. I also destroyed Man City 4-0 in the first game of the season.

Im in season 2 now, and despite signing some better players (Balotelli, Kieren Tierney, David Luiz, and Bruma on loan), i seem to be struggling a lot more than I did with my weaker team in the first season. I think it comes down to many things though. Its no good having great players if they have low consistency, or are lazy (Balotellis training). Plus it also pays to have a strong team cohesion, and morale.

To sum it up, I think its easy to build a successful team if you can get all these points to work in unison, but it still presents a challenge in actually getting there in the first place

[Things Could Get Messi]

19 hours ago, Preveza said:

Unrealistic. Shouldnt happen within just 7 seasons. Poor AI

Thanks for the praise, I appreciate it. 

[Things Could Get Messi]

19 hours ago, johnsie said:

The particularly interesting thing here is that big teams are spending much more than him and he's still using mostly domestic players, meaning the talent in his squad is significantly inferior, it was acquired well under value, or the AI does the sort of nonsense described in one of the recent posts with respect to player acquisition and use. I want to make it clear that I believe taking teams from the bottom to the top over time is something to be preserved or enabled, but when it becomes one of the only sort of enduring challenges that's a bad indication. I also don't really see how you can incorporate everything you'd like to see in a single set of "stuff", hence why I believe you need to work on differentiating saves and having players choose what kind of challenge they would like to experience. This is the reality of a game in my opinion, otherwise you're always looking at serious trade-offs.

Using domestic players has been a huge part of my FM management since FM15. Putting together a top class side by signing players regardless of nationality or where I signed them from was something that made the game far too easy to me. A career at Feyenoord where I stayed for over 25 years was a big turning point in my long time as an FM player. I took over with them only having 2 Dutch 1st team players. Disappointed especially as the club's youth system was not being used, I set about putting it right. By the end, EVERY senior player in my squad was Dutch, the majority came through the youth system or signed as 15/16 year olds and the club was the biggest in the world. I felt I took a lot more pride in how I did here than I did in most of my previous long term saves over the years. 

Trying to replicate this in England was and is my main aim of this long term save on FM19. The only foreign players I have signed so far have been because of a lack of realistic to sign home grown talent that would be good enough in ability. I have continued to make sure the club improves top to bottom so down the line the club can produce it's own players. A move to a 46k seater stadium in a year from now will also be a huge help in the growth of the club.

Sadly, I have to admit the flaws of the Ai are still bad in FM19 and my squad building so far has been mainly based around exploiting them. The big 6 clubs sign players and then hardly use them. They also bring through talented HG players but a mixture of their transfer policies (signing big names regardless of how much they need them) and lack of rotation results in good players being available to sign. Man Utd are a typical example of bad AI management in my save. Their insistence of signing quality from elsewhere has seen no player except Gomes come through and become a 1st team regular yet and there is no sign of anyone else doing so either. They might as well scrap their youth facilities and make their youth staff redundant as they make no use of them. I also shouldn't be able to pick up Jadon Sancho for £24m due to their failure to play him. However, it's these flaws that make me even more determined that I run my club in how I feel is the correct way. 

[johnsie]

Restricting yourself to domestic players doesn't seem to have done that much to stop you either. How many divisions did you climb?

Out of curiosity, how did you get a Dutch-only Feyenoord, let alone one comprised mostly of your own products to be the biggest club in the world? I would imagine you'd simply be limited on talent.

8 hours ago, Things Could Get Messi said:

The big 6 clubs sign players and then hardly use them.

This is just unacceptable and there is no excuse for it. Couple that with not developing their youth players what happens when current players retire? When I was eliminating Chelsea back in FM14 I think it was as Levski Sofia 5-6 seasons in I thought I was starting to notice weakness in the big clubs as players were aging but still playing while I was picking up talented youth players for little, although come to think about it 5-6 years shouldn't quite be enough and some things have changed since then. Anyway, if things are as bad as you describe I would imagine whenever the developers get around to addressing much of anything FM players might be in for a shock, and the subject of this thread can flip.

[Halofon]

heh I am on the opposite this year - too unsuccessful. No moaning, unluckily I was not able to find any sustained tactic for FM 19 until now.

[johnsie]

Out of curiosity, what tactics are some of you people trying? Some variation of the 4-2-3-1 is what I've always played with mostly because I've never had the squad to try something different and even using two forwards as a favorite has yielded questionable play. Perhaps some people are inclined to force formations and tactics on their squads and the ME and things don't go well, which further restricts what you can do.

[Things Could Get Messi]

8 hours ago, johnsie said:

Restricting yourself to domestic players doesn't seem to have done that much to stop you either. How many divisions did you climb?

Out of curiosity, how did you get a Dutch-only Feyenoord, let alone one comprised mostly of your own products to be the biggest club in the world? I would imagine you'd simply be limited on talent.

I climbed up 3 divisions with Lincoln as they start in League 2. They actually have a very strong squad for where they start and I would expect a reasonable FM player to get them promoted 1st season and make a good fist of League 1. I probably have a slight advantage though as I live in the area and get to a few matches each season. 

As for Feyenoord, I can split it into 3 parts in how it was done. It should be noted firstly though that I joined in August 2024, 10 years into the save. 

1: My running of the club. I made sure we have the best facilities and coaching staff all the way through the club. If a senior coach retired the chances were I would promote one up. As a result, the quality of some of the regens I would get in intakes would be high. A couple over the years got into the senior squad as soon as they appeared. Others improved to be top level players by the age of 18. Others would need more time but you could ask me about any player I had and I knew where I was with their development. 15-20 players each season would be out on loan and my reserve team made the Dutch Cup final on 4 occasions winning it once when they beat my 1st team in the final! The striker who became the club's record scorer and the CAM who became the club record appearance holder both were academy products. We also had a 78k seater stadium named after myself. My proudest moment though was when Holland named a starting XI and used 3 subs that were all my players simply because I doubt anyone else has ever done that! 

2: The other Dutch clubs. NAC Breda had a tycoon takeover a couple of seasons before I joined Feyenoord. They became a big club in their own right and were even very wealthy once he left due to having more sponsorship money than me. Breda regularly made the knockout stages of the Champions League and even played me in the final once. Vitesse also gained a tycoon to become Holland's 3rd biggest club and also proved themselves to be competitive in Europe. Ajax and PSV remained at the same sort of level as they start but simply got overtaken. Many other clubs moved to 20k+ stadiums and got steadily richer but still needed to loan some players which was great for me. As a result, more clubs were producing good regens and the Eredivisie was 2nd to only England in the co-effiecients table. There was more top quality Dutch players than even I had room for.

3: My crazy ideas. I don't follow the "correct" ways of doing things all the time. On regen day each season I would send my scout out to find the best of the new talent and I would pick up on average one a season. After about 20 years of doing this a player cropped up who didn't look very promising. However I signed him because (bizarrely) my scouts had never recommended a player from this club ever before! I've never seen a player improve so much and he was a 1st team regular at 19. I also decided at around 2028 to get Dartford as a feeder club. They had climbed to the Championship and I saw an opportunity. I had players who simply needed game time to improve and they would always need a few of my players on loan due to the size of their club. It worked as well as many players I sent their for a season or 2 improved due to the quality of the football in that division. Being able to think around the block is a very valuable manager attribute on this game and can be very rewarding. 

[Ellisio]

Far from too easy in my save as Chelsea. Liverpool just seem so overpowered on this year's game. 3rd season they've won every single game in the first 14 games. I'm already 7 points behind!

[LukasZ_VCF]

On 01/01/2019 at 16:05, Brady84 said:

There are just so many tactics that make the game "easy" (don't even use gegenpress) I would be surprised if you couldn't reach the CL final with any of the bigger teams 1st season even without spending any money. With Rangers (and no save scumming, based on game information I saved once every 8 hours) 1st season I reached the EL Semi (won the first leg 4-0 and then lost 6-0 away against Inter) 2nd season I lost in the Semi of the CL To Athletico- who finished 2nd in my group (Won 3-1 and lost 5-2 away) With a first 11 on a combined £145k a week, only buying free transfers and a max wage of 25k.

Been thinking about playing an EPL save for a while, but can't decide who to actually play to keep the long term enjoyment, at least the rest of the teams will spend big money to keep it somewhat competitive.

I wonder which ones... I tried to check different tactic (simulating entire season) even in 3rd season where I had good squad playing Valencia and none won the CL and have really great results

[sporadicsmiles]

While we all know that an improved AI is one of the key improvements needed in the game (and one of the hardest to code, I imagine, if SI want to do this without giving artificial boosts), there is an elephant in the room that nobody else is discussing; the way a player plays.

Many of us are experienced users. We have played the game for years and years. We read forums about good players, about tactics, about optimal training setups, and everything in between. This is an advantage the game cannot beat, ever, without actively handicapping the player (and I am very opposed to this, it is lazy programming to do this). We can look at some examples (all of these are hypothetical, none of these are aimed at any particular player).

1). I have played the game for 600 hours throughout several saves, often 10 years into the future or more. In that time, I get to see what players are successful and which are not. I gain insight into how much I can buy players for at the start. The star players for the roles I want to play. Who is the cheapest and best option I can buy right now. I come into the transfer window with this experience. I do not need to scout, I can go and buy the 7 best young players in the game, for little money, because I have 600 hours of experience. The AI cannot do this (well it could, but it is actively boosting them). They have to scout players, and it depends how well known a player is at that time. 5 years in the future, when you have 7 of the best players in the world in your side, of course you have achieved unrealistic goals. Is this the fault of the game? Not really, it is the user giving themselves an inherent advantage. It cannot hide players from you. This is something the users have to police themselves. Do not buy a player unless he comes in a scout report, for instance.

2). I downloaded a really good tactic from the forums, which looks really nice. I buy the players I need to play it, plug it in, and boom. We win easily every single match. Zoom up the leagues, making average players look great. I am the greatest manager in the world, but I can win with every single team too easily. No matter where I start, I will win. Is this the fault of the game? Absolutely not. It cannot, and should not, prevent you from playing however you like. This one, too, is on the player for using an exploitative tactic to game the ME. You can, of course, point out that this is something the devs should fix and put it down to bad AI. This is true. However, nobody forces a player to play this way.

3). I have played FM for over a decade, probably have close to 10,000 on the game total. I understand the ins and outs so well I could do it in my sleep. I know how to set up a tactic on my own, and can make almost anything work if I put my mind to it. I have learnt how to manually scout for players so well that I can find a wonderkid years before other clubs. I know every little trick I can use to exploit weakness in the AI. I can use the media engine to my advantage. I may not fly up the leagues, but I always have an upward trend. Is this the fault of the AI? Again, of course not. You cannot program an AI as advanced as a person with so much experience. There will always be experienced players who know how to play the game so well it feels easy. You have to set yourself challenges and goals (this is where I am in the game. Not being so amazing, but good enough I set myself a goal when I play).

Now let me just reiterate, I definitely think improvements to the AI can be made. Their squad building is below par (and I suspect there is not much rush to fix this, I imagine many players start new careers before they get very deep into the game). Their tactical choices and responses are often poor. There is also no real personality to AI managers (Guardiola and Mourinho feel the same). Improvements must be made. However, you have to also look at yourself to see if you are making the game easier yourself. Every single player can read number 1 and think of themselves at some point. I do it. Not to acquire every single great player, but if I need a player in a position, I will take a player I know is cheap and will be a success later in the game. Bear this in mind when we are thinking about the game being too easy, because the human player has so many advantages.

[Svenc]

^ Good post. Still AI won't be ever programmed to be "too competitive"; as that would still frustrate a lot of users. Actually, this is a real concern in games development, and when the devs were still around, they were frustrated by this likewise. In tendency, the worse a Player performs, the more the game tends to be "blamed". Naturally, everybody has a tipping Point. This is tin-foil hat time for me but there are a couple of AI tactical decisions I consider a Downgrade from FM 2013 (where they were fixed and classed as a bug from <= FM 2012)… And honestly, SI have been receiving Feedback as of their AI for a very Long time from their users (and likely even mods). 

https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/116071/Analysis_Game_AI__Our_Cheatin_Hearts.php

It's odd though. Precisely though because so many Players absoluelty "Trash" the game, every little time they don't and drop the odd point, they perceive the AI of "cheating". When it's simply the AI the only Entity in the game traditionally ever playing (extremely) defensive Football, and on the Occasion, taking the Points. You can't ever take Points in Matches that "statistically" appear one-sided (on FM'S stats Level anyways, ahem), if you doN't ever set out to do so... That FM's AI does such far too readily, even when Managing the bigger dogs, is another story, naturally...
 

[johnsie]

12 hours ago, sporadicsmiles said:

We read forums about good players, about tactics, about optimal training setups, and everything in between.

I have done absolutely no such thing. I virtually never come to this forum, don't read anything about FM externally, this is the only section I look at, and hardly even read anything relevant to the stuff you listed. There was not a sliver of what I did in my save that comes from here. And I know for sure you're no prodigious FM sentient being. The room isn't there. What I'm also confident I think I know is that if only SI wanted to they have the wherewithal to implement improvements to the AI that will force-feed you some humble pie. This is not a matter of cutting-edge AI human-replication. This game is too simple and currently the AI fails on a very basic level. We're also not talking about level ground. The whole ME is "AI" with only so much under your control. A managerial AI that competes on the market and handles its squad decently starting with better squads and finances than you can be difficult to overcome. Perhaps there is a lot of difficulty in actually achieving this, but you're distorting the matter. It's more a matter of algorithms than what should be considered fully fledged-AI, and the starting point is fairly abysmal. The game isn't terribly complicated, capping how much needs to be done. I think you're grossly overestimating your ability.

12 hours ago, sporadicsmiles said:

1). I have played the game for 600 hours throughout several saves, often 10 years into the future or more. In that time, I get to see what players are successful and which are not. I gain insight into how much I can buy players for at the start. The star players for the roles I want to play. Who is the cheapest and best option I can buy right now. I come into the transfer window with this experience. I do not need to scout, I can go and buy the 7 best young players in the game, for little money, because I have 600 hours of experience. The AI cannot do this (well it could, but it is actively boosting them). They have to scout players, and it depends how well known a player is at that time. 5 years in the future, when you have 7 of the best players in the world in your side, of course you have achieved unrealistic goals. Is this the fault of the game? Not really, it is the user giving themselves an inherent advantage. It cannot hide players from you. This is something the users have to police themselves. Do not buy a player unless he comes in a scout report, for instance.

Ok, let me put this emphatically. I couldn't care less for players like you. This thread is not about players like you, I despise players like you, and I'm not a player like you. I cannot fathom taking a save 10 years into the future just so in a subsequent save I know exactly what players to go after or whatever it is that you're implying just so... what exactly do you think you're accomplishing with this behavior? Yes, you may not need to scout, you can have somebody tell you who the best youth players are, whatever... I see now that you didn't bother reading the first post at all despite opening with "the elephant in the room no one is discussing"... I don't understand what qualifies as a good post on this forum. Downloading a really good tactic from this forum and buying players for it...

O, and most certainly, you can "program AI" to scout promising young players and form a queue in the hundreds being "extremely interested". Do you realize how trivial your thought process in doing so is, and do you realize how many AI controlled clubs there are? Hell, you couldn't even realize the importance of reading the first post, which is the premise for this thread, and considering that what you're describing has nothing to do with it? Would you like to ask what other players did in their saves before proclaiming your human superiority? What in the world are these tangents, man? I almost wish SI could take humbling this guy as a challenge. I am under no illusion that I'm doing anything special, hence the point about the game being too easy and limited, and I'm also not pretentious enough to wax poetic about my insuperable superiority when if you spent just five minutes considering what the AI could do differently you'll pipe down a little about how good you are at the game.

12 hours ago, sporadicsmiles said:

However, you have to also look at yourself to see if you are making the game easier yourself. Every single player can read number 1 and think of themselves at some point. I do it. Not to acquire every single great player, but if I need a player in a position, I will take a player I know is cheap and will be a success later in the game. Bear this in mind when we are thinking about the game being too easy, because the human player has so many advantages.

Speak for yourself, mate. I guess I should've made it clear this thread doesn't concern cheating and cheaters, which some consider to be a prevalent behavior.

8 hours ago, Svenc said:

^ Good post. Still AI won't be ever programmed to be "too competitive"; as that would still frustrate a lot of users. Actually, this is a real concern in games development, and when the devs were still around, they were frustrated by this likewise. In tendency, the worse a Player performs, the more the game tends to be "blamed". Naturally, everybody has a tipping Point. This is tin-foil hat time for me but there are a couple of AI tactical decisions I consider a Downgrade from FM 2013 (where they were fixed and classed as a bug from <= FM 2012)… And honestly, SI have been receiving Feedback as of their AI for a very Long time from their users (and likely even mods). 

https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/116071/Analysis_Game_AI__Our_Cheatin_Hearts.php

It's odd though. Precisely though because so many Players absoluelty "Trash" the game, every little time they don't and drop the odd point, they perceive the AI of "cheating". When it's simply the AI the only Entity in the game traditionally ever playing (extremely) defensive Football, and on the Occasion, taking the Points. You can't ever take Points in Matches that "statistically" appear one-sided (on FM'S stats Level anyways, ahem), if you doN't ever set out to do so... That FM's AI does such far too readily, even when Managing the bigger dogs, is another story, naturally...
 

...So how about creating a mode for those of us who'd like to have some fun with a challenge, extract a sense of accomplishment, and feel like we're doing something worthwhile? This is also a backward mentality. You're imagining that progress cannot happen because people would complain. Which God created this forum and created the law that FM is one thing and one thing only? On what premise? Realism?

How have some of you guys been around here for over a decade and not gotten bored?

PS

It's also highly ironic how for the most part we've been talking about the opposite- rather than taking an unfair advantage over the AI, intentionally handicapping yourself to experience more of a challenge.