Do we need difficulty levels?

[Zemahh]

1 hour ago, dannysheard said:

Out of interest, are the people playing in lower leagues not getting promoted pretty much every season?

Yes, mostly thanks to the loan system. For example, in the English lower league system you can easily get in six 3,5-4* current ability players on loan every season, mostly without even having to pay their wages too.

With requesting Team Reports, you can pretty much bypass the scouting system, as they're guaranteed to always come up with plenty of great options (i.e. finding these players through scouting assignments would take much longer).

While I wouldn't want to see difficulty levels affecting the match engine, scouting is one area I'd like to see made more difficult. Perhaps another option that we could tick on the game setup screen, that would remove the Player Search screen entirely and force us to only work through our scouts or players recommended by other staff. Apart from maybe the very first season, when your scouting database is still limited, I feel hunting for potential world-beaters is simply too easy.

Another great option could be to hide/summarize most of player's attributes (at least those not in your own club). That way you couldn't simply cherry-pick the best possible combination of attributes, but would have to trust some sort of a general description, similarly to what we get for hidden attributes in Scout Reports. There's currently custom skins that can sort of do that.

Edited March 8, 2020 by Zemahh

[dannysheard]

50 minutes ago, Zemahh said:

Yes, mostly thanks to the loan system. For example, in the English lower league system you can easily get in six 3,5-4* current ability players on loan every season, mostly without even having to pay their wages too.

With requesting Team Reports, you can pretty much bypass the scouting system, as they're guaranteed to always come up with plenty of great options (i.e. finding these players through scouting assignments would take much longer).

While I wouldn't want to see difficulty levels affecting the match engine, scouting is one area I'd like to see made more difficult. Perhaps another option that we could tick on the game setup screen, that would remove the Player Search screen entirely and force us to only work through our scouts or players recommended by other staff. Apart from maybe the very first season, when your scouting database is still limited, I feel hunting for potential world-beaters is simply too easy.

Another great option could be to hide/summarize most of player's attributes (at least those not in your own club). That way you couldn't simply cherry-pick the best possible combination of attributes, but would have to trust some sort of a general description, similarly to what we get for hidden attributes in Scout Reports. There's currently custom skins that can sort of do that.

I agree that scouting is way too easy if you do manual scouting, particularly the Team Reports trick where you can scout a whole team pretty much instantly. I now only look at players that my scouts have found, so effectively ignoring the Player Search screen.

Another problem, as highlighted above, is that AI teams don't have any skill in signing players. You can sign Haaland (even when having to wait nearly a year for your scouts to 'find' them) for his release clause, with no AI team trying to sign him. He's a 4* CA for Liverpool at 19, and you can get him for £65m, and nobody tries to sign him. Just doesn't make any sense. It surely couldn't be hard to code the AI to be better at that side of the game.

[dannysheard]

1 hour ago, Zemahh said:

Yes, mostly thanks to the loan system. For example, in the English lower league system you can easily get in six 3,5-4* current ability players on loan every season, mostly without even having to pay their wages too.

With requesting Team Reports, you can pretty much bypass the scouting system, as they're guaranteed to always come up with plenty of great options (i.e. finding these players through scouting assignments would take much longer).

While I wouldn't want to see difficulty levels affecting the match engine, scouting is one area I'd like to see made more difficult. Perhaps another option that we could tick on the game setup screen, that would remove the Player Search screen entirely and force us to only work through our scouts or players recommended by other staff. Apart from maybe the very first season, when your scouting database is still limited, I feel hunting for potential world-beaters is simply too easy.

Another great option could be to hide/summarize most of player's attributes (at least those not in your own club). That way you couldn't simply cherry-pick the best possible combination of attributes, but would have to trust some sort of a general description, similarly to what we get for hidden attributes in Scout Reports. There's currently custom skins that can sort of do that.

I thought the same, that it's simple to get promoted as a lower-league team, so it's still unrealistically easy.

In my Chorley save last year, I didn't take the time to change my tactics for the different quality of players or try to work out the different mechanics for that level of football, as it wasn't really floating my boat. I just did the normal, sensible stuff and I was on course for back-to-back promotions and in the FA Cup I knocked out several teams from leagues above me.

It wasn't more difficult at that level.

[Matej]

13 hours ago, Santa Claus said:

grand theft auto

exactly the reason i didn't buy GTA. When there are no diff levels, you know whats first thing that cross my mind? In this game even moron can be good.  2nd thing : that company first reason is money. 

There are just few good games, like Braid ( think didnt had diff levels) that are made for people with bigger IQ, so it didnt need difficulty levels. But in FM, im sure 12 year old kid can win 5 times premiership in a row.

And thank to all of you " take low league club" advice. Some of us playin this game for 27 REAL years, do you really think we didnt do that like 50, 60 times in our life? I dont remember when i picked some bigger club, probably 10 years ago. 

Also, for you who sayin this game will never have diff levels, i bet in my life that one day FM will have diff levels. SI , or some moding scene will make difficulty levels. 

Btw, AI managers all have diffrent ratings, do you see real diffrence between  Klopp , Guardiola, Sarri or Mourinho? I dont, i would like to hear,  maybe some of you see diffrent things. 

 

 

[H_a_a_k_o_n]

Can't really understand the moaning her. You want harder game? Then just make your own set of rules when playing. I use my own Llama-rules, and i find the game more than difficult enough. If i want it harder, i make myself even harder rules that i have to follow.

For example: you think its easy with lower league because you can loan very good players. Then just don't loan. Easy fix.

[Ultras500]

You already have difficulty levels, its called managing different clubs with different needs.

I am currently doing a Champions league challenge across the world. I start as 19 years old, no badges, Sunday league experience and unemployed. This right there is one of the first difficulty options you have, as you aren't going to manage in the Prem straight away.

I am running god knows how many leagues with around 230,000 players. I have a few added caveats to my career, I had to have completed a full season with a club before doing the first badge. I can only do one badge per continent per Champions league win. At some point I must take a club up through at least 3 leagues and win the top division. I am aiming to win all 6 Champions Leagues + the new 4 year format World Club Cup.

My first step is the Oceanic champions league and despite winning the New Caledonian league 2 out of 3 years, their domestic cup once and a decent OCL run, I am still struggling to get a club over there to win the OCL. Just got the Hawkes Bay job half way into the season and I am probably going to be sacked! Turns out I took a ridiculously difficult job, while NZ may be the best clubs and walk the OCL, they also don't have £10 to share between them in the entire league. If I manage to stay another season I have to somehow build a new team with a club £2 million in debt. Currently spending £4000 a week on wages on a budget of £3000. 90% of the teams contract is up at the end of the season and the highest earner is £100 a week so that gives you an idea of my limitations. Can i turn it around? Yes, maybe, we'll see.

My point is if you want a difficult game or a challenge then pick a club, league or a goal to match. Go make Villa as good as Liverpool, or return Leeds/Forest to the top. Managing Liverpool is effectively the beginner level of the game.

 

Edit - Also while managing in New Caledonia, all clubs there are semi-pro and won't let you scout outside the country. Add masking attributes at the start and you have a proper challenge, especially if you chose to manage a one of the weaker clubs in a small nation.

Edited March 8, 2020 by Ultras500

[wynter]

2 hours ago, dannysheard said:

I agree that scouting is way too easy if you do manual scouting, particularly the Team Reports trick where you can scout a whole team pretty much instantly. I now only look at players that my scouts have found, so effectively ignoring the Player Search screen.

Another problem, as highlighted above, is that AI teams don't have any skill in signing players. You can sign Haaland (even when having to wait nearly a year for your scouts to 'find' them) for his release clause, with no AI team trying to sign him. He's a 4* CA for Liverpool at 19, and you can get him for £65m, and nobody tries to sign him. Just doesn't make any sense. It surely couldn't be hard to code the AI to be better at that side of the game.

Considering he went for €23 million this January why the hell is anyone interested in buying a player for 3/4 times his actual value? 

"Why aren't Real Madrid bidding £400 million for Pogba!"

[Aceace]

23 hours ago, jimbo22 said:

You want a hard game, dont go Liverpool. Pretty simple. Go Norwich and see how it goes. Also, as it stands Liverpool have only lost 4 points so far this season. 

LOL!! I'm in my third year with Norwich. And game still feels easy. Picking Norwich doesn't make the game any more difficult. (First season qualified for Europa league, second season I finished 2nd) There is only one difficulty option in game:

How many real players in the game?

Thats it. FM is not a multiplayer focused game but game does not feel challenging at all when played against AI. You sell your useless/below average players for a lot of money and fill future stars/super bargains. (maybe with some emergency transfers) If you play with your friends thats just not happen. You can't sell your party boi Pukki for 27.5m, you can't sell no name 29 years old but playing at U23 winger for 18m etc..

The only challenging and fun way to play FM is, get 3-4 friends, pick a random team from relegation zone. Thats all. My BEST FM experience was playing with Newcastle at FM 2014 against 5 mate. God it was sooo hard and soo funny. You can't buy THE bargain forward. You can't buy THE super duper GK, You can't get THE best coaches... Because 5 other dudes are rushing to them too. 

How to make the game more challenging? Simple.. AI needs to be much much much better at identifying targets and paying appopriately. Lemme give you an example. In my last Brighton save (Yeah i love picking a relegation zone team in EPL) I sold Shane Duffy for 20m, Pröpper for 22.5m AliReza Jahabanakahabah for 15m.. Jesus. It makes NO SENSE! With that much money I could re-build entire squad with much better players.

[Federico]

Have you tried by chance to play a not-british league?

[Aceace]

1 hour ago, H_a_a_k_o_n said:

Can't really understand the moaning her. You want harder game? Then just make your own set of rules when playing. I use my own Llama-rules, and i find the game more than difficult enough. If i want it harder, i make myself even harder rules that i have to follow.

For example: you think its easy with lower league because you can loan very good players. Then just don't loan. Easy fix.

This makes no sense at all.. Why? Why would a real team puts a barrier between them and success? Thats stupid!

If Messi decided to play in EPL, would any team say no to him? Just because they don't want to win EPL in easy mode?

[Aceace]

8 minutes ago, Federico said:

Have you tried by chance to play a not-british league?

Ofc.. Darmstadt 98, St Pauli, Celta Vigo, Parma and especially Livorno... I just don't like going 3th-4th divisions. 

It doesn't matter which team you managing.. AI is just so bad at identifying and valueing their targets.

Edited March 8, 2020 by Aceace

[Ultras500]

10 minutes ago, Aceace said:

Ofc.. Darmstadt 98, St Pauli, Celta Vigo, Parma and especially Livorno... I just don't like going 3th-4th divisions. 

It doesn't matter which team you managing.. AI is just so bad at identifying and valueing their targets.

That can be effected by the number of leagues and database size.

You need to find the sweet spot, adding China and a couple of South American leagues helps. 

The AI can still be frustrating, in past games and saves I have always encountered issues selling players and a complete lack of interest. I got Oscar on a free transfer in fm18 maybe, literally couldn't give him away 18 months later. Always seems to be the same issue no matter which team, can't get rid of a particular player. Where in real life you can send them to China, MLS, Turkey, various Arab clubs etc.

[dannysheard]

3 hours ago, wynter said:

Considering he went for €23 million this January why the hell is anyone interested in buying a player for 3/4 times his actual value? 

"Why aren't Real Madrid bidding £400 million for Pogba!"

In the game, though, he's just been top scorer and player of the year in Germany at the age of 18/19 and he's good enough to walk into any team in the world, so they absolutely should be wanting to buy him.

[dannysheard]

3 hours ago, H_a_a_k_o_n said:

Can't really understand the moaning her. You want harder game? Then just make your own set of rules when playing. I use my own Llama-rules, and i find the game more than difficult enough. If i want it harder, i make myself even harder rules that i have to follow.

For example: you think its easy with lower league because you can loan very good players. Then just don't loan. Easy fix.

I presume you're being obtuse to bait people, but some people really think like this. Could you imagine if they didn't have difficulty levels on Fifa and people suggested that you shouldn't have them and that people that want it to be harder should just refuse to take penalties. Or throw-ins. Or free-kicks.

[99]

21 horas atrás, dannysheard disse:

Please elaborate on why you think adding in difficulty levels would be the death of all realism.

I get some people wouldn't want to use the harder setting(s), but some of us would definitely like it, particularly if you play as one of the big clubs where it's incredibly easy to win the league every season.

I think others already offered very good insight about the reason.

But to put it simple: Football Manager wants to achieve realism as much as possible, and IRL you don't have difficulty levels, neither you have sliders were you can get up from bed and adjust a slider left or right so your boss is more tolerant or strict with the orders he gives you. It's not real, it's on the realms of fantasy, where FM doesn't want to be.

You can have, in-game, the same difficulty levels you have IRL. A manager in a lower league team without resources has a different life than a manager who despite crying about the unfairness of the world still manages teams like Man United or Spurs and earns more in an year than most football managers in a lifetime around the world. So yes, there are the difficulty levels, implemented from the very beginning.

[Santa Claus]

5 hours ago, Matej said:

exactly the reason i didn't buy GTA. When there are no diff levels, you know whats first thing that cross my mind? In this game even moron can be good.  2nd thing : that company first reason is money.

You haven't bought a single GTA game in your life? You are missing a lot. 2nd thing, it can be said for a lot of companies but Rockstar? Yes they make good money but have also consistently been releasing high quality games. Almost all the other big developers have screwed their customers over in one way or the other (EA, Blizzard, Bioware, Bethesda) but Rockstar have always been very careful about releasing high quality product that is always worth the money you pay for it.

[thehig2]

There already are in directly.

If you go Man City its easy, if you go Ebbsfleet its hard.

[deltablue]

How aboout playing with Pokemon Nuzlocke rules. You can only sign the first player a scout or agent recommends to you each winter and if a player gets injured (for say, at least a month), they're considered to have 'fainted' and have to be released

[dannysheard]

8 minutes ago, deltablue said:

How aboout playing with Pokemon Nuzlocke rules. You can only sign the first player a scout or agent recommends to you each winter and if a player gets injured (for say, at least a month), they're considered to have 'fainted' and have to be released

The scary thing is, these aren't the worst suggestions on here today

[dannysheard]

1 hour ago, thehig2 said:

There already are in directly.

If you go Man City its easy, if you go Ebbsfleet its hard.

But if you go Ebbsfleet, you will still easily overachieve and get promoted every season.

That isn't harder, it's just a lower league.

[dannysheard]

1 hour ago, thehig2 said:

There already are in directly.

If you go Man City its easy, if you go Ebbsfleet its hard.

If managing Ebbsfleet is the hardest job in football, why doesn't their manager get the City job?

Edited March 8, 2020 by dannysheard

[Ultras500]

1 minute ago, dannysheard said:

But if you go Ebbsfleet, you will still easily overachieve and get promoted every season.

That isn't harder, it's just a lower league.

Well I guess you are ready for real life football management. Good luck, not that you will need it. Zidane's 3 in a row is in real threat now!

[dannysheard]

46 minutes ago, Ultras500 said:

Well I guess you are ready for real life football management. Good luck, not that you will need it. Zidane's 3 in a row is in real threat now!

Oh, sorry, I think you must've misunderstood the words that have been written in the thread. They're sometimes hard to follow, especially when you're feeling an ickle bit tough.

What I'm saying is that I shouldn't be able to easily perform better than Zidane, but in this game I can. Without really trying. Because it's easy, like.

What I want is to not be able to win everything, because in real life nobody has ever had anything like the record I've had managing Liverpool on this game, when they've had either a) the (second) best squad in the league, like they have now or b) the fourth/fifth best squad in the league like they've had on most other versions of FM.

On other games, they have difficulty levels to mitigate the fact that some people are good at that game (which doesn't necessarily make them a better human being, it's often just because they've played it a lot over the years).

[Ultras500]

But you don't understand this game can't have difficulty levels the way you want.

Its essentially MS excel doing however many calculations on all various stats with a little RNG thrown in. A slider system would only increase RNG against you so more injuries, players get unhappy quicker, want contracts more often. That would almost make it unplayable. The alterations being what hard mode? So everyone plays as well as Barcelona each week.

I just find it impossible to believe you haven't failed or even come close to in this years. That suggests you haven't really challenged yourself.

There are more than enough serious and sensible suggestions in this thread to make it harder. The first being manage someone other than Liverpool!

[KlaaZ]

4 hours ago, dannysheard said:

I presume you're being obtuse to bait people, but some people really think like this. Could you imagine if they didn't have difficulty levels on Fifa and people suggested that you shouldn't have them and that people that want it to be harder should just refuse to take penalties. Or throw-ins. Or free-kicks.

That's a ridiculous comparison.

Also, this is not FIFA. Neither is it Civ, or whatever other game you tried comparing it to. 

[dannysheard]

17 minutes ago, Ultras500 said:

But you don't understand this game can't have difficulty levels the way you want.

Its essentially MS excel doing however many calculations on all various stats with a little RNG thrown in. A slider system would only increase RNG against you so more injuries, players get unhappy quicker, want contracts more often. That would almost make it unplayable. The alterations being what hard mode? So everyone plays as well as Barcelona each week.

I just find it impossible to believe you haven't failed or even come close to in this years. That suggests you haven't really challenged yourself.

There are more than enough serious and sensible suggestions in this thread to make it harder. The first being manage someone other than Liverpool!

...or make the game harder so it is still a realistic challenge to be Liverpool manager? 

And I’d say that, as a glorified spreadsheet, the game would be perfectly suited to a number of under-the-hood difficulty tweaks that wouldn’t need to be noticeable but would just be enough to separate the wheat from the chaff.

I’m amazed that so many people are against the idea. I guess it’s the same reason that most people wouldn’t want to see their wife enter a beauty competition.

[wazza]

Are not difficulty levels already in the game in that you can start with a Sunday League reputation with no coaching badges and work your way up

[dannysheard]

28 minutes ago, wazza said:

Are not difficulty levels already in the game in that you can start with a Sunday League reputation with no coaching badges and work your way up

And we have a winner. I’m out.

[Kingstontom88]

As has been said, there are plenty of ways of making the game 'difficult' or 'easy', starting with how you set up your manager profile with experience and attributes

See no point in difficulty levels at all. Quality teams should be hard to play against and top class players should be tough to sign.

[thehig2]

2 hours ago, dannysheard said:

If managing Ebbsfleet is the hardest job in football, why doesn't their manager get the City job?

****s sake you get my point, managing lower league is generally harder than managing a top team with plenty of resources.

 

For some reason Ebbsfleet was the first lower league team I thought of.

 

How about Maghull FC in the West Cheshire Division 1, with no money, no staff and no players and a terrible ground and facilities.

Been at that Maghull game and and 7 years in still in very low division (north west counties premier ) 

[dannysheard]

11 minutes ago, thehig2 said:

****s sake you get my point, managing lower league is generally harder than managing a top team with plenty of resources.

 

For some reason Ebbsfleet was the first lower league team I thought of.

 

How about Maghull FC in the West Cheshire Division 1, with no money, no staff and no players and a terrible ground and facilities.

Been at that Maghull game and and 7 years in still in very low division (north west counties premier ) 

Yes. But I presume the other teams in West Cheshire Division 1 aren't exactly swimming in resources either?

[wazza]

1 hour ago, Kingstontom88 said:

As has been said, there are plenty of ways of making the game 'difficult' or 'easy', starting with how you set up your manager profile with experience and attributes

See no point in difficulty levels at all. Quality teams should be hard to play against and top class players should be tough to sign.

This which agrees with my  last post - also take over a team like Bolton who start the game on -10 points and see if you can keep them up/  Taking over a top team is making the game too easy , starting in a difficult situation is making it harder.  Or do what I do and go unemployed so that the first team you pick is in relegation trouble with no resources to build from.

You could even look on this forum at some of the challenges that people do and report how you are doing in the careers thread, which will make the game harder.  

Edited March 8, 2020 by wazza

[Snorks]

4 hours ago, dannysheard said:

 

What I'm saying is that I shouldn't be able to easily perform better than Zidane, but in this game I can.

I never knew Zizu played FM.

[thehig2]

9 hours ago, dannysheard said:

Yes. But I presume the other teams in West Cheshire Division 1 aren't exactly swimming in resources either?

There not but its still more difficult than being a top team with plenty of resources.

[dannysheard]

3 hours ago, thehig2 said:

There not but its still more difficult than being a top team with plenty of resources.

Not from my experience of playing, or reading about good players who burn from lower league to Champions League in a decade.

Some people are just really good at this game, like some people are really good at other games, and it's those people who would want the difficult levels.

I wouldn't go onto a forum for another game that I'm not so good at and say they should scrap difficulty levels because it makes me feel bad that I'm not the top level.

I also wouldn't go onto their forums to say scrap their official, properly coded and weighed difficulty levels and instead bring in self-imposed rules like not using grenades or only shooting left-handed or refusing to wear armour.

If you don't think the game needs difficulty levels then you could just ignore them and stay on the default level.

[Etebaer]

Well, in CaC Germany out of a 3.Liga start i was able to get Promotion every Season.

Out of a Workshop League starting in the lowest possible league in Germany i usually get stuck for a while in the Regionalliga (you get Promotion 2 times till that) and there only the Leaguechampion may get a promotion (depends in which Regionalliga you Play - some have a Promotion Playoff with another Regionalliga - its a 4 out of 5 get promotion Situation) and that becomes very hard, as you usually, if you start with a CaC Club have no Reputation and you wont get the Players be it adult or youth that garantuee Promotion and there is allways the relegated Team that usually is way to strong for the League and it becomes a Ligue 1 Situation were you win yourself to death only to be beaten once or twice and then lose it all while you cant get hold of your most improved Players and if you do never make it into the DFB Pokal you get in serious financial Trouble, as you only have minimal matchday attendance on top of that and may end up in Administration or what it is called if you get not other Cash Influx.

But that is all mood and nothing as SI decided to make such play impossible for the time being as CaC no longer works with Workshop leagues.

In a Career start this my be different when you Play Clubs with a very good Reputation that get huge matchday crowds and Access to the best Players of their Tier.

 

PS: I dont think we need difficulty Levels - for that you have already 2 Version of the game and you can choose your difficulty by what Club you take to manage and what Manager experience you give yourself.

 

Edited March 9, 2020 by Etebaer

[Guest]

I don't think we need difficulty levels. For example, take a team from Vanarama to PL

[Brother Ben]

I guess my question is who would use “easy mode” when you consider the time you have to invest, how hollow a feeling would success be then?

surely everyone would go for the hardest mode?  Therefore your real point is that the game should be harder, in fairness you could have a point, and you make a good argument for it.  
Trouble is too hard = less sales.  People want to win, that’s the reason why FM Live died a death.  A human player had to lose

sadly I don’t think there’s a solution to this at the minute 

 

[pheelf]

Do we need difficulty levels? Hmm...probably not but I could be convinced otherwise with a well thought out argument which offers a reasonable way of implementing such a concept into the game. The problem as I see it would be that introducing difficulty levels starts to veer the game away from being a simulation and more towards the arcade end of the spectrum. That is not a problem if that's what you want from the game but it risks alienating a lot of players who already think the game is too much on that end of spectrum and stepping into FIFA's territory probably wouldn't be a wise decision from SI.

I think rather than having artificial difficulty levels, the AI within the game needs to be improved which would naturally add difficulty to the game. The problem with that is increased capacity of AI necessitates increased processing power which has the nasty side effect of making the game run slower. There in lies the crux of the matter. The games entire fan base isn't going to invest in supercomputers to run an exceptionally powerful AI so SI is always going to be limited by the average specifications of the computers of their customers.

I do think you have a valid point that irregardless of the level of football you start at you should be challenged. I don't think it's reasonable to suggest that a player must be forced into playing with a lower league team or place restrictions on themselves in order to be challenged.

As it stands, once you have sufficient money and a good enough squad there isn't much more the game has to offer to halt progress. That I think is wrong as there are always issues a club has to deal with at every level. At smaller clubs it's always a matter of having insufficient money whereas at elite clubs it's a matter of using your resources wisely to get that little bit extra to overcome your rivals. I think the game manages to model the lower end of the spectrum better (although not flawlessly) but doesn't really do justice to the higher end at all. 

There are a number of challenges which you would face as say the manager of a club like Liverpool which aren't well simulated which makes the game significantly easier, such as:

1) It's too easy to assemble a powerful all conquering squad. You should face fierce competition from your rivals to secure the best players, that doesn't really happen as much as it should. The best players should also be aware of players at the club they want to join and that should influence their decisions. I think if you were to try and sign a player for Salah's position of similar ability that he would have something to say about it along with the player you are hoping to sign. He may even decide not to open negotiations with the club if he felt that his chances of first team football would be poor.

2) Scouting is too accurate whereas in reality even if you scout a player thoroughly over a long period of time it's still a lottery whether you unearth a gem or not, that level of randomness isn't really a part of the game at all. In real life, how many players have there been which have arrived with a massive price tag but failed to live up to expectations? An awful lot. This isn't possible in the game (barring having awful scouts) as you can know everything about a player (even what he could be like in the future) before you've even approached to sign him.

3) Squad harmony becomes too easy to maintain after a while especially once you have enough team leaders. 

4) Fatigue and weariness isn't modeled well unless you're seriously mismanaging it. You can play a very intense style in every game for an entire season without any major ill effects for doing so.

5) Fans don't have as much of an influence as they should. In reality, fans can exert an enormous amount of additional pressure on a manager especially if they aren't playing a style which they enjoy watching. The larger the fan base of a club, the bigger the effect.

6) The manager has too much control over aspects of the club which he otherwise wouldn't. At lower league clubs you may have a manager who does everything (out of necessity) but at the top end this simply does not happen anymore hence why a lot of managers at elite clubs are described as head coaches.

7) Once you reach a certain reputation, opposition teams begin to play against you in very predictable ways (defensively if they are significantly weaker) and once you know how to deal with that you can rack up points easily. Whereas in reality, you'll often get teams which will have a go. Playing style is too tied to reputation in FM whereas in reality it isn't as closely tied. A manager will usually have a philosophy and make slight alterations depending on the opposition not wholesale changes. For e.g. Norwich City are still trying to play the style they adopted in the Championship even though they are bottom of the table, in FM they would be forced into playing differently.

8) AI teams are incapable of proper squad rotation and often start injured players. This is one of the biggest advantages the human player has over the AI.

Those are off the top of my head but it's easy to see why playing with a top club is easier than it should be. The worst thing about it is that these advantages accumulate over time and the further into the future you go the bigger they become until you reach a point where the lead becomes insurmountable and your team can dominate season after season. I don't think difficulty levels would necessarily solve this problem, it may slow you down a bit in the early period but would likely just delay the inevitable. I sense it will need a massive overhaul of the systems within the game to change this.

Best Regards

Edited March 9, 2020 by pheelf

[WilltheWolf92]

The La Louvière project is good to try, if you get them in 3 years in the first division you a pro

[Tyburn]

I think it may have already been mentioned but one of the absolute best ways to increase the difficulty, without any artificial restrictions you place on yourself, is to play a network game.

When you’re all looking to manage the best clubs, sign the best players, have the ‘in’ tactic of your game universe it makes it ALOT more challenging.

[Kanwulf]

Surely the past experience is the "difficulty level"?

[EazyEee]

Surprised so many people are against this idea, seems pretty straight forward to me. In order for FM to be fun for as many people as possible, it needs to be considerably easier than real life. A difficulty level, or think of it as a survival mode in Fallout can be there for the longer-term players who are looking for a harder challenge. I'm at the point now where I've lost interest in starting a new save.

[HUNT3R]

2 minutes ago, EazyEee said:

Surprised so many people are against this idea, seems pretty straight forward to me. In order for FM to be fun for as many people as possible, it needs to be considerably easier than real life. A difficulty level, or think of it as a survival mode in Fallout can be there for the longer-term players who are looking for a harder challenge. I'm at the point now where I've lost interest in starting a new save.

It doesn't make practical sense. That's a big reason why.

 

It does take viewing from a customer (new, experienced etc) and a SI perspective though.

[anagain]

Wow, holy necro, Batman. Didn't notice this was an old thread until I posted.

For me, the player is the difficulty level. By that I mean I set my own difficulty. I scout every player I sign, and never go for players I know from other saves. If my scouts don't suggest a player then I don't buy him. There are exceptions to this, such as signing players from a previous club, getting a DoF recommended player in on loan in an emergency or signing a player yous ee in a match, but you have to be strict on yourself.

The manager experience levels can be a difficulty level too. If you go to the Conference South as a world class player then you'll probably have an easier time of it.

There is the club you choose too. If you're Manchester United then of course you'll find the game easier. Manage Havant and Waterlooville (no offence, fans) and impose restrictions of yourself. See how you do then.

This is all part of a way of playing the game known as LLaMa. Lower League Management.

My last point is simply, how do you make difficulty levels in FM? I don't believe you can make the game any easier than it is. The game already offers tactics, the ability to turn off player value visibility and a number of options to turn off the need to do certain parts of management. I just don't see what SI could add to make the game harder without the need for players to impose their own limits. Do you lower the abilities of your own players? For me, that is ridiculous.

The best way to improve the difficulty of the game is to make AI managers better, but that's not a simple task. It is very dependent upon technology. I'm no expert, but I don't believe AI technology can make an AI manager as good as a player yet. FM will always be unforetunately limited by that fact.

Edited August 31, 2020 by anagain

[masno]

While the player is the difficult level, when a player achieve the knowledge of how to play this game, doesn't matter if you are a 7th tier team, or a champions league contender, you will win everything, have the best squad and become a living legend. This is what make the game needing some sort of difficult settings.

I had a great save with OM that in only 5 years I was able to completely dominate the french league, and I was also dominating in the champions league, I had 3 finals in 4 champions that I was in, so the only option for me was to resign and go to other challenge, but basically is the same circle, I got in, rebuild the squad and all the staff, and in 5/6 years I was basically another big gun, but in other country. I even tried a low league team, but was just a matter of time before I got in the elite and start destroying everyone. I didn't use any manual scouting, or any exploits to achieve any of this, I simply know how transfers works, and what tactics use against certain oppositions. Obviously that I didn't win everything every year, but that was also a matter of time before that happen. So yeah, when you start understanding the game, it's basically a matter of time to you became a liverpool or a bayern, with your super stars and big amounts of money.
A difficult setting could even make the ME more robust, because SI could make the tactic screen even more complex for harder difficulties, and also better challenges for the transfers windows, maybe making the game more exciting!

[anagain]

52 minutes ago, masno said:

While the player is the difficult level, when a player achieve the knowledge of how to play this game, doesn't matter if you are a 7th tier team, or a champions league contender, you will win everything, have the best squad and become a living legend. This is what make the game needing some sort of difficult settings.

I had a great save with OM that in only 5 years I was able to completely dominate the french league, and I was also dominating in the champions league, I had 3 finals in 4 champions that I was in, so the only option for me was to resign and go to other challenge, but basically is the same circle, I got in, rebuild the squad and all the staff, and in 5/6 years I was basically another big gun, but in other country. I even tried a low league team, but was just a matter of time before I got in the elite and start destroying everyone. I didn't use any manual scouting, or any exploits to achieve any of this, I simply know how transfers works, and what tactics use against certain oppositions. Obviously that I didn't win everything every year, but that was also a matter of time before that happen. So yeah, when you start understanding the game, it's basically a matter of time to you became a liverpool or a bayern, with your super stars and big amounts of money.
A difficult setting could even make the ME more robust, because SI could make the tactic screen even more complex for harder difficulties, and also better challenges for the transfers windows, maybe making the game more exciting!

Ok, but how would you assign difficulties? How to make the tactics screen more complex? How to make the ME more robust than it is, when it is obviously not an easy thing to perfect now (if you judge by the amount of discussion over it)? How to make transfers more challenging?

If it was that simple they'd have done it already. As I have said, the AI is the limiting factor in games. A player will always be better than an AI manager. 

Take Civilisation. The game has difficulty levels that give the AI bonuses. On the highest level the AI might start with extra cities or extra settlers. They will have extra troops at game start and get bonuses to growth. People still beat the AI easily. I watch a guy on YT that plays the game at the highest levels and can stomp the AI.

How do you ascertain difficulty levels like that in FM? Giving the AI better players or more money doesn't help if the AIs problem is that it can not improve squads or design tactics as well as you can. 

Do you lower your reputation so you can not get the best players? All that does is change the game and limit the depth of FM. 

Until AI can compete on the same level as a human player then we have to make do. I am sure SI work very hard on their AI, but a human player will always catch up and pass the AI managers.

To prove this, how many times have you taken over at a club and found the squad make up to be terrible?

One thing that might make a difference is to be able to force yourself to play without player values. Judge players based on what your scouts tell you, not on the numbers on a players profile. Judge players just by watching them in a game. 

Edited August 31, 2020 by anagain

[masno]

29 minutos atrás, anagain disse:

Ok, but how would you assign difficulties? How to make the tactics screen more complex? How to make the ME more robust than it is, when it is obviously not an easy thing to perfect now (if you judge by the amount of discussion over it)? How to make transfers more challenging?

If it was that simple they'd have done it already.

It is not simple, but it is not achievable exactly because of the player base. We have a good number of players that don't know anything about the manager job, what he really do, what is tactics, and how contracts are done, if SI simply go and make everything ultra-hard, all this player base (I must say they are probably more than 45%) will go away from the game. I find FM easy because I love football, and I follow my team and most majors competitions, transfers windows and all tactical analysis for more than 15 years, but it is not everyone that have this dedication, it is not everyone that put in 2-4 hours just looking at videos and tutorials so can improve in the game. Most of the player base is casual lads that just want to grab a team and press continue, have some immersion in the training, but leaving most part to the ass man, and assemble a tactic the way they like, and SI know that. Exactly because of this that the roles exist nowadays, because they are basically roles put all together, pretty straight-forward for this player base get in the game.

But answering your question, there is 1000 ways that SI can make everything more robust by adding difficulties levels. Like, in hard level, you would have control over all the field in the ME, instead of players having roles, you would choose where they would attack and defend, how they would do it, their instructions, put this together with their PPM, and having your tactic doing what you actually expect. This is the pro, the con about it is that if you don't know what you are doing, your team will be all over the place and this will lead to several losses. This will be harder, player will need to actually have a challenge, and obviously, if SI manage to make the ME more robust, we won't find exploits leading to ultra tactics. This is a form for us to actually achieve more realism, and also not leaving the casual players behind, the normal difficult would still be there, they would still have their roles and the TI and PI that we have nowadays, but that would actually help the tacticians and the hardcores.

A way to harden the transfers is more to code the AI to identify the gems, like IRL teams do, and actually sell them to a price that is fair, or put AI teams to pursuit this gems too, nowadays is so easy to have a full 25 squad with great players, and even easier to maintain them in the long run, that don't even make the game enjoyable after 7 years, you literally have a solid team. Also other way is making players wanting to leave, like Neymar did. You have a great player, but he wants to be the star, so one team with the finances for it actually come and grab him. But that obviously wouldn't happen all the time, and also not with only against the player, so wouldn't be something easy to achieve, but in my opinion, would be a great way to take the next step without sacrificing anyone in the player base.

[Impacto]

On 07/03/2020 at 22:36, hognef said:

In my opinion, the game definitely needs some sort of difficulty levels. I've been playing since 93/94 or thereabouts (less in recent years), and, like the dannysheard, I normally play with "my" team, in my case Man Utd. I've never had noteworthy problems winning the league in the first, or, at worst, the second season. This is just as true now as back when United were indeed the best team in the country. Managing Man Utd in their current situation should be difficult, because there are several teams in the PL that are significantly better than them. Do you think Ole Gunnar Solskjær finds it easy at the moment?

Rather than levels of difficulty, I'd call them levels of realism. More realism should make it harder to keep players happy if they're not playing regularly, certain players should be harder to manage regardless (Pogba, say), it should be harder to hold on to good players (in particular for smaller teams, which would make it harder to sustain growth over time), there should be more competition for players that you want to sign, there should be fewer players available who are interested in signing, etc. Also, other teams should be better at looking after they're own interests -- not easily selling players that they want to keep, making sure to replace players that they've sold, building up their squad in reaction to and anticipation of my (and other) clubs improving their squads.

Nothing in the above would make it artificially harder. Instead it would reduce the artificial simplicity that is currently in the game. Also, somebody made a point about level playing field between humans and the AI, but, realistically, it's only the human manager who actually does any thinking in this game, so inherently he/she certainly does have the upper hand. There are ways to re-balance this.

It should be just as hard, if not harder, to manage big clubs as it is to manage smaller clubs. Big club vs small club should definitely not need to define the level of difficulty.

I agree a 100% with this comment. Managing big clubs should be harder as it is in real life. So how about we have an option that is called "extreme realism" or "hardcore" that is tickable at start of the game. If you check that box the AI is supercharged and doesn't let you off. Everything is instantly harder and now you have a challenge. Now winning the league would not be "meh, anyone can do it", not it's an achievement. And you can play with your favorite club without getting bored after 3 seasons of winning it all. I really, really love this idea and I am dissapointed more people aren't in favour of it. New players can still enjoy the 'light' version of the game, but hardcore players can really test themselves with such an option. 

 

 

[anagain]

35 minutes ago, masno said:

It is not simple, but it is not achievable exactly because of the player base. We have a good number of players that don't know anything about the manager job, what he really do, what is tactics, and how contracts are done, if SI simply go and make everything ultra-hard, all this player base (I must say they are probably more than 45%) will go away from the game. I find FM easy because I love football, and I follow my team and most majors competitions, transfers windows and all tactical analysis for more than 15 years, but it is not everyone that have this dedication, it is not everyone that put in 2-4 hours just looking at videos and tutorials so can improve in the game. Most of the player base is casual lads that just want to grab a team and press continue, have some immersion in the training, but leaving most part to the ass man, and assemble a tactic the way they like, and SI know that. Exactly because of this that the roles exist nowadays, because they are basically roles put all together, pretty straight-forward for this player base get in the game.

But answering your question, there is 1000 ways that SI can make everything more robust by adding difficulties levels. Like, in hard level, you would have control over all the field in the ME, instead of players having roles, you would choose where they would attack and defend, how they would do it, their instructions, put this together with their PPM, and having your tactic doing what you actually expect. This is the pro, the con about it is that if you don't know what you are doing, your team will be all over the place and this will lead to several losses. This will be harder, player will need to actually have a challenge, and obviously, if SI manage to make the ME more robust, we won't find exploits leading to ultra tactics. This is a form for us to actually achieve more realism, and also not leaving the casual players behind, the normal difficult would still be there, they would still have their roles and the TI and PI that we have nowadays, but that would actually help the tacticians and the hardcores.

A way to harden the transfers is more to code the AI to identify the gems, like IRL teams do, and actually sell them to a price that is fair, or put AI teams to pursuit this gems too, nowadays is so easy to have a full 25 squad with great players, and even easier to maintain them in the long run, that don't even make the game enjoyable after 7 years, you literally have a solid team. Also other way is making players wanting to leave, like Neymar did. You have a great player, but he wants to be the star, so one team with the finances for it actually come and grab him. But that obviously wouldn't happen all the time, and also not with only against the player, so wouldn't be something easy to achieve, but in my opinion, would be a great way to take the next step without sacrificing anyone in the player base.

It is a possibility, yes, but you still have the fact that the player can learn faster than the AI. Sooner or later the player will surpass the AI.

Even if you take away player roles the player will adapt.

It is a possibility though. Many do look back on the sliders, and days before the roles, as better.

I think the game is already better than it was though. In the Welsh league with Bangor I was struggling to surpass TNS on a consistent basis. When I left the club they did seem to go a little backwards though. 

Maybe there is some way SI can add a toggle to remove the roles and have a player manager judge for themselves.

I am all for ways to make the game a more lasting experience.