FM: FM23: level of difficulty

[phnompenhandy]

1 hour ago, enigmatic said:

The AI randomly using player tactics seems to sort of miss the point of FM being a simulation of the world of football though.

I'm sure AI Pep could win even more consistently using ChineseForumChickenWing523CornerExploit but it sort of misses the point that this isn't how he actually plays...

Good point well made!

[sthptngomad76]

18 hours ago, enigmatic said:

The AI randomly using player tactics seems to sort of miss the point of FM being a simulation of the world of football though.

I'm sure AI Pep could win even more consistently using ChineseForumChickenWing523CornerExploit but it sort of misses the point that this isn't how he actually plays...

Why not just have it as an option in game setup? Ultimately, it's a game and I want to be entertained. I can have the option of ultra realism if I want, but if I just want a bit of fun I can have the entertainment too.

I feel the game just doesn't allow enough game setup modifiers to tailor difficulty. If you want to play a youth only save, can we have a tickbox only allowing youth academy players to be selected? If you want to play a local only save, have an option only allowing players to be signed from X km/mi from your ground? The tactical familiarity/morale modifiers suggested by others? I realise you can self impose all of these...but it is surely a no-brainer to implement to at least add the illusion of a modifiable difficulty? Or is it just the usual SI complacency?

Edited January 6, 2023 by sthptngomad76

[shirajzl]

11 minutes ago, sthptngomad76 said:

Why not just have it as an option in game setup? Ultimately, it's a game and I want to be entertained. I can have the option of ultra realism if I want, but if I just want a bit of fun I can have the entertainment too.

I feel the game just doesn't allow enough game setup modifiers to tailor difficulty. If you want to play a youth only save, can we have a tickbox only allowing youth academy players to be selected? If you want to play a local only save, have an option only allowing players to be signed from X km/mi from your ground? The tactical familiarity/morale modifiers suggested by others? I realise you can self impose all of these...but it is surely a no-brainer to implement to at least add the illusion of a modifiable difficulty? Or is it just the usual SI complacency?

It's the vanity of FM community. Right now we have one version of FM and it's the same for everyone, so when someone achieves something, it has some weight (supposedly) because the playing field is the same. Imagine if we had difficulty levels etc., if someone says "I won the CL with Bradford PA", he'd get bombarded with questions like "yeah, but was it on hard difficulty, did you give the AI custom tactics? No? Pffft."

[DarJ]

10 minutes ago, shirajzl said:

It's the vanity of FM community. Right now we have one version of FM and it's the same for everyone, so when someone achieves something, it has some weight (supposedly) because the playing field is the same. Imagine if we had difficulty levels etc., if someone says "I won the CL with Bradford PA", he'd get bombarded with questions like "yeah, but was it on hard difficulty, did you give the AI custom tactics? No? Pffft."

It’s not even that. How would they deal with testing the game and bug fixes if everyone’s setup is different. Most people would argue that they’re not doing that well with big fixes at the moment even if the game is basically the same for everyone apart from little things like tactics etc

[enigmatic]

1 hour ago, DarJ said:

It’s not even that. How would they deal with testing the game and bug fixes if everyone’s setup is different. Most people would argue that they’re not doing that well with big fixes at the moment even if the game is basically the same for everyone apart from little things like tactics etc

This. Huge amount of work involved in developing a system that figures out what the "best" human tactics are, embeds them in the game and assigns them to managers at appropriate times, and if you get it wrong league tables start to look silly. Why would you invest all that time and money for a checkbox option for a literal handful of people that actually want to play against random plug and play exploit tactics rather than the actual range of tactical decisions a manager would be likely to make in a game.

Especially when it goes against the whole ethos of FM (simulating football, tactics being something you adjust to the match situation not "plug and play", exploits being considered areas for improvement in future match engines rather than a desired feature of the game)

[Blünderbossu]

Just like FM22, I'm finding that the difficultly level swings wildly based on small movements in player morale, team form, and player concerns/complaints. I mention the latter two separately because it often plays like they're barely related mechanically to morale and a problem with even a couple of players or a completely expected run-ending loss causes the whole team to go from genius to utterly inept even when the morale for the team is still in the green.

I can be on a run of five comfortable wins in a row and then after narrowly losing in the cup to a team two divisions higher my form will still go off a cliff and I'll lose eight in a row even though the morale was still good; similarly I can have a player come to me with a concern that usually doesn't really make much logical sense, have only a couple of bench-warmers agree with them and still despite the morale still looking good my team have all suddenly completely forgotten how to pass or press for the next half dozen games. And then the next time I load the game I'm winning every match at a canter again.

It's sort of balanced because my tactics and squad building probably never merited the run of wins I was on in the first place, but it certainly feels like a whole season of mediocrity happens a lot less than these feast/famine seasons the past few iterations of FM. When mediocre form is happening it feels like things you are doing are having an impact whereas most of the time I'm playing I feel either like I barely need to pay attention to win or that I need to be peak Fergie to get a draw against the bottom team in the Vanarama National North.

[shirajzl]

3 hours ago, Blünderbossu said:

Just like FM22, I'm finding that the difficultly level swings wildly based on small movements in player morale, team form, and player concerns/complaints. I mention the latter two separately because it often plays like they're barely related mechanically to morale and a problem with even a couple of players or a completely expected run-ending loss causes the whole team to go from genius to utterly inept even when the morale for the team is still in the green.

I can be on a run of five comfortable wins in a row and then after narrowly losing in the cup to a team two divisions higher my form will still go off a cliff and I'll lose eight in a row even though the morale was still good; similarly I can have a player come to me with a concern that usually doesn't really make much logical sense, have only a couple of bench-warmers agree with them and still despite the morale still looking good my team have all suddenly completely forgotten how to pass or press for the next half dozen games. And then the next time I load the game I'm winning every match at a canter again.

FM has always had that feeling of "the game has decided that you're on a bad streak of form now, be patient" when your world class players still play the opposition off the park easily, but miss every chance, while at the same time you concede seemingly after every other corner, freekick and a random long ball. After a few games, it resets and you continue winning as before. Myth or not, that exact same feeling has been uncanny over the years.

[warlock]

2 hours ago, shirajzl said:

Myth or not, that exact same feeling has been uncanny over the years

And yet, somehow, over my entire experience with FM I've never felt that. It's almost as if, as in real life, teams lose games they "should" win, and win games they "should" lose.

In my most recent season, we "should" have beaten Chester-le-Street Town comfortably. Struggling to a 0-0 draw could have knocked us off course:

But it didn't. Even worse, a few weeks later we actually suffered a loss in another game we should have won, and followed that with a draw when we should have won both games:

Did FM decide we were on a bad streak? Nope - we dropped only 2 points from the remaining 18 and ended the season as champions, at a canter. If you believe that the game "has decided" anything, you probably need to surrender the idea of managing a football team and rely on rolling the dice, consulting the tarot cards, or asking your favourite astrologer for tactical advice.

[Etebaer]

Am 5.1.2023 um 15:17 schrieb enigmatic:

The AI randomly using player tactics seems to sort of miss the point of FM being a simulation of the world of football though.

I'm sure AI Pep could win even more consistently using ChineseForumChickenWing523CornerExploit but it sort of misses the point that this isn't how he actually plays...

Not randomly, that would make no sense, but yeah, if you want a bigger challenge then find the cryptonite tactic for CFCW523CE, its up to you - and if it is possession based Pep will gladly use it if it wins him the Champions League, bet on it!

[enigmatic]

If you want to try to find the kryptonite tactic for a particular tactic, you could always set the opposition up to play that yourself rather than expecting SI to write illogical logic to do it...

[Kuchiki]

I think there should be a switchable difficulty level in the game, the way I envisage it would be to have say:

Very Easy - 25% penalty to opposition matchday attributes

Easy - 15% penalty

Normal 

Hard - 15% penalty to User matchday attributes

Very Hard - 25% penalty 

Whether this would be feasible or not is another matter as I'm not a game designer.

[phnompenhandy]

34 minutes ago, Kuchiki said:

I think there should be a switchable difficulty level in the game, the way I envisage it would be to have say:

Very Easy - 25% penalty to opposition matchday attributes

Easy - 15% penalty

Normal 

Hard - 15% penalty to User matchday attributes

Very Hard - 25% penalty 

Whether this would be feasible or not is another matter as I'm not a game designer.

Don't really like it, but the way to do it would be to fiddle with the hidden 'consistency' attribute.

[Kuchiki]

1 minute ago, phnompenhandy said:

Don't really like it, but the way to do it would be to fiddle with the hidden 'consistency' attribute.

So Very easy = less rng

Hard = More rng? 

That could be a good idea if there was a notable drop in ai results on easy and a drop in user results on hard.

What exactly do you not like about it?

[phnompenhandy]

6 minutes ago, Kuchiki said:

So Very easy = less rng

Hard = More rng? 

That could be a good idea if there was a notable drop in ai results on easy and a drop in user results on hard.

What exactly do you not like about it?

I don't know what "rng" is. Do you now what the 'consistency' attribute is?

[Kuchiki]

7 minutes ago, phnompenhandy said:

I don't know what "rng" is. Do you now what the 'consistency' attribute is?

random number generator

(gaming, informal) Randomness, variability, or luck produced by a random number generator. The combat in this game is way too RNG-based. Jeez, I'm having terrible RNG today.

 

Yes I believe I do, 'consistency' is pretty self explanatory - a high rating being where the player in question is able to play to his full ability in each and every game.

 

Going back to my question 'What exactly do you not like about it?'

Edited January 29, 2023 by Kuchiki
spelling

[phnompenhandy]

5 minutes ago, Kuchiki said:

random number generator

(gaming, informal) Randomness, variability, or luck produced by a random number generator. The combat in this game is way too RNG-based. Jeez, I'm having terrible RNG today.

 

Yes I believe I do, 'consistency' is pretty self explanatory - a high rating being where the player in question is able to play to his full ability in each and every game.

 

Going back to my question 'What exactly do you not like about it?'

My focus is on Football Manager. You're bringing outside stuff into it, which is not required. The Consistency attribute does what you're asking. If you don't want to know how this game works, there's no conversation to be had.

[phnompenhandy]

On 05/01/2023 at 00:32, Etebaer said:

It would already be a nice challenge if SI would allow the AI access to the successful manager tactics human managers use (optionally per preference setting).

The game is online anyway as it runs per steam and a library of succesfull tactics for the AI should not be that big i guess and rather easy to aquire.

 

Also the squadbuilding can be better, the AI should know if a certain tactic needs fast players, or strong players, or technical players and what mentals they must have for best results.

 

Atm the game is rather easy but only as long you find players that fit into your tactic/team as the wrong sub/starting player has snatched some defeats out of the jaws of victory for me - this game is probably the most sensible to that.

Yeh, for me the key factor that makes the game 'easy' is recruitment. However, it's easy to impose some restrictions on yourself, such as making the Director of Football wholly responsible for signings and contracts. with him being 'AI', it levels the playing field in my view.

[Kuchiki]

1 minute ago, phnompenhandy said:

My focus is on Football Manager. You're bringing outside stuff into it, which is not required. The Consistency attribute does what you're asking. If you don't want to know how this game works, there's no conversation to be had.

Sorry I don't think you have understood my post or I haven't explained myself coherently. You said you didn't know what 'rng' was so I was trying to explain it to you.

You were suggesting the possibility of altering difficulty via the 'consistency' attribute? Did you mean like the way I suggested via a percentage penalty but only to the player's consistency attribute? 

Consistency behaves in my opinion like 'rng' i.e. randomness... a high rating in consistency would mean less anomalous performances, a low rating meaning more anomalous performances.

So ideally you would want high consistency, as it allows your player/s to perform to the best of their ability on a regular basis. This is how I believe it works if I'm not mistaken. 

I never said I didn't want to know how the game works so I'm a bit confused as to why you said that.

 

[phnompenhandy]

7 minutes ago, Kuchiki said:

Sorry I don't think you have understood my post or I haven't explained myself coherently. You said you didn't know what 'rng' was so I was trying to explain it to you.

You were suggesting the possibility of altering difficulty via the 'consistency' attribute? Did you mean like the way I suggested via a percentage penalty but only to the player's consistency attribute? 

Consistency behaves in my opinion like 'rng' i.e. randomness... a high rating in consistency would mean less anomalous performances, a low rating meaning more anomalous performances.

So ideally you would want high consistency, as it allows your player/s to perform to the best of their ability on a regular basis. This is how I believe it works if I'm not mistaken. 

I never said I didn't want to know how the game works so I'm a bit confused as to why you said that.

 

Okay, I just meant there's no need to bring in extraneous terms like 'rng' when consistency does just that. In the game as it is, high-profile, mature, professional players can expect to have high consistency whereas the younger the player and the lower down the levels you go, the more likely players are to have low consistency. My point was that in theory you could have a setting that increases/decreases that hidden attribute by 50% or 25% for players at your club. I wouldn't support it because all you have to do in my opinion is choose a low-level team with young players (or play an Academy-Only save where the only players you can bring in are the 15-16 year-olds from your once-yearly academy intake, which is what I'm doing - their performances fluctuate all over the place).

[Kuchiki]

2 minutes ago, phnompenhandy said:

Okay, I just meant there's no need to bring in extraneous terms like 'rng' when consistency does just that. In the game as it is, high-profile, mature, professional players can expect to have high consistency whereas the younger the player and the lower down the levels you go, the more likely players are to have low consistency. My point was that in theory you could have a setting that increases/decreases that hidden attribute by 50% or 25% for players at your club. I wouldn't support it because all you have to do in my opinion is choose a low-level team with young players (or play an Academy-Only save where the only players you can bring in are the 15-16 year-olds from your once-yearly academy intake, which is what I'm doing - their performances fluctuate all over the place).

I like the idea of having a setting you can choose which could affect consistency for a range of players. I think this way allows for a greater variety of playstyles as for your example you are kind of locking yourself into a certain way of playing the game. This is fine of course if that is how you would like to play the game but it doesn't allow for more variety.

[phnompenhandy]

12 minutes ago, Kuchiki said:

I like the idea of having a setting you can choose which could affect consistency for a range of players. I think this way allows for a greater variety of playstyles as for your example you are kind of locking yourself into a certain way of playing the game. This is fine of course if that is how you would like to play the game but it doesn't allow for more variety.

You're always free to tweak your own parameters though. In my current save, I've started as a wholly unqualified manager, thus I'm not entrusted with anything other than picking the team and tactics. When I get my first coaching qualification, I'll allow myself to take training off my assistant manager. I could always 'evolve' from an Academy Intake recruitment system to recruiting from the county we're in or something like that. The Careers forum is chock-full of creative ideas for interesting careers that involve self-imposed restrictions to create different levels of challenges. There's so much you can do with a little imagination that doesn't require a simple tick.

[Kuchiki]

5 minutes ago, phnompenhandy said:

You're always free to tweak your own parameters though. In my current save, I've started as a wholly unqualified manager, thus I'm not entrusted with anything other than picking the team and tactics. When I get my first coaching qualification, I'll allow myself to take training off my assistant manager. I could always 'evolve' from an Academy Intake recruitment system to recruiting from the county we're in or something like that. The Careers forum is chock-full of creative ideas for interesting careers that involve self-imposed restrictions to create different levels of challenges. There's so much you can do with a little imagination that doesn't require a simple tick.

I fully endorse what you are saying, I personally have taken on multiple academy and dafuge challenges myself, however it doesn't cover all bases.

A newcomer to the game, or even a veteran with limited time may wish to play an easier game or to be successful with for example their favourite team in the Championship. A difficulty modifier setting may allow them to do this in a way that the 'vanilla' experience does not. 

On the flipside an experienced veteran of the game who finds the game too easy may wish for a greater challenge managing Man City. An optional difficulty modifier could penalize his players allowing for a greater challenge without the need of imposing 'rules' or 'restrictions' to their game such as only using academy players.

In this way it is more accessible without the need of jumping on the forum to come up with a specific playstyle. 

[Golob]

The game already has two built-in mechanics for potential difficulty level setting:

1) Home / Away match

2) Traits in managerial style setup

I guess these two might be used for creating some difficulty level slider, using modifiers that affect the first one and amplifying effects of the second one.

Edited January 29, 2023 by Golob

[jcafcwbb]

I said this in another thread but surely the best way to give a difficulty setting is the financial route.

We have seen the way Wrexham have been transformed by their takeover and I wonder if that could be an option at the start especially for beginners. Start with their own L2/National League team but with a sugar daddy. I take it the game does not have that option already.

Maybe there needs to be an option to do this to your club mid-game. If you are in a rut then use this option. I wonder if there is a way to nerf the likes of Man City and PSG financially if you want a bigger challenge.

I personally let my AI Director of Football sign my players and so we stick to the club vision and not exploit the wunderkid situation. 

[danej]

On 13/12/2022 at 17:22, herne79 said:

I have several games in my library that don't.  For example, World of Warcraft, Euro Truck Simulator and Motorsport Manager to name just 3.

Anyway, as you find the game so easy, what would be far more valuable for the devs (and perhaps others who don't find it as easy) would be if you and others like you detail exactly how you play the game rather than just "still easy like FM22".  Constructive feedback like that could actually be very useful.

For example, do you play the game in a realistic manner?  Do you simply load up the latest OP tactic and have at it?  What style of football do you tend to use?  Do you holiday seasons or past each match?  Do you use an instant result mod?  How do you deal and interact with your players?  How do you treat the transfer market?  How do you watch and manage matches?  What aspects do you delegate to your staff?  How do you set up your games (leagues loaded, attributes on/off, manager's badges etc)?  Just a few examples, there are plenty of other aspects.

I'm not asking you to answer me here, merely saying that perhaps some constructive feedback in terms of what you do and how you play the game might be valuable.

I don't think this is being fair on SergeiG. He has given plenty of examples of how he plays over the years. If I understand him correctly he doesn't necessarily do anything special. He just knows how the game works, get the basics right, like many of us. Use a decent tactic, could be a preset. Manage morale. Make subs and rotate. Do squad building, mostly buying younger players, selling overpaid players.

 

I agree with SergeiG, would be interesting with difficulty levels.

 

The way the game is now

it is incredibly challenging to make the game challenging

(you have to invent severe and probably unrealistic save restrictions)

[danej]

On 14/12/2022 at 23:58, Michael Sant said:

In terms of actual difficulty levels for the game, you have to remember that most other games create difficulty through either giving the AI cheats or scripting certain elements. Some people might value that in the FM series, but its not exactly something that translates well that 1 gold coin for you is on normal, 1 gold coin for the AI, on hard its 2, on very hard its 3 and on extreme its 5. We don't have the dials we can turn like a lot of games where difficulty = health sponge & 1 shot mechanics.

I wish SI would create such dials. Difficulty levels. So I wouldn't have to play with extreme save restrictions to make the game challenging.

 

You don't need to do all the stuff the herne (falsely) accuses SergeiG for to make the game too easy.

 

I delegate almost everything to staff. Including all staff recruitment, training and scouting. Only use preset tactics. And 100 other things. And the game is still way too easy.

 

All you need to do is manage morale and do decent Moneyball squad building.

Edited February 1 by danej

[danej]

On 20/12/2022 at 07:23, TheVerySpecialOne said:

Good for you man, I lost 7 games in a row, using gegenpress, dropped from 1st to 9th place, morale is really low, don't know how to get out of it.

There may not be a short term fix. But do the basics well and you rarely be in such situations.

 

Research morale management, training, heavy physical pre-season training to avoid fatigue towards the end of the season, use the preset Gegenpress 4-3-3 DM wide if you don't plug in an OP one, learn about squad building.

 

If you do those things you might never be in such a situation  again.

[danej]

On 20/12/2022 at 13:38, phnompenhandy said:

A common thing I'm noticing with myself and others is we get off to a good start, then hit a rough patch, and we lose hand over fist. I'm still trying to work out if it's due to oppo sussing out our tactics, bad training regimes or just a worsening morale snowball effect. But it happens time and again.

Could be due to lack of heavy physical pre-season training to prevent fatigue. There are threads about that topic.