Ideas regarding save restrictions? Which restrictions do you use?

[danej]

I would like ideas to save restrictions in order to make the game harder. All else being equal, I enjoy the game the most when my performances are either on par, or only marginally better, than what the board expects. I prefer that there is a real risk of getting sacked, at least occasionally in each save.

 

Here are my own ideas that may be of use to others. Most of this I always use. I will also put my "staff responsibilities" setting in pics below so you can see what I currently delegate.

1. Delegate all regarding staff. Hiring, firing, extending contracts, everything. In my experience, this isn't a major problem, at least not if you are OK with mediocre performance. The DoF generally appoints decent staff. For example, in my current Sunderland save, I had the best first team staff in the Championship. And even now, at the beginning of season four and my first in the Prem, the staff is slightly better than average for the league. Also, the club owner generally appoints a decent DoF in my experience.

2. Delegate everything regarding scouting.

3. Delegate initialising and negotiating signings. Only finalise them yourself.

4. As an extension of point 3, only consider signing players whom your DoF or HoYD is trying to sign. In reality this means that you cancel most of the deals that they want to make because they are rubbish. But that you occasionally approve a useful signings of theirs. I love this restriction. It means that I generally make rather few signings in my saves, thus allowing my original players or my own regens to show what they can do.

5. Limitations regarding whether you are allowed to ask the board for upgrades to the infrastructure (your own coaching badges, training facilities, youth facilites, level of junior coaching and youth recruitment, number of staff). In any case you can never ask for more staff, since in my experience the club owner does a decent job at upgrading those numbers when needed. I am a bit undecided on the rest. In my current save I have never asked for anything, so nothing happens and the training facilities have slightly deteriorated. I consider softening the rules here so that I for example can ask for coaching badges up to a level of that of other staff members. And that I can ask for various facility upgrades for each level I manage to promoted the club, i.e. once for each promotion or for qualification to a better European Cup or for advancement to a more latter stage of the Champions League, something like that.

6. Delegate all media handling (boring).

7. Delegate all traning. Never touch training. As with point 1, of course this is far from ideal. But it is good enough. You probably won't do any worse than AI managed clubs by doing it this way.

8. Only use preset tactics. When it comes to the details, I am currently a bit undecided. My favourite tactics, the Gegenpress 4-3-3 DM wide feels OP. So perhaps I will experiment further with other non-OP tactics, and/or implementent even harsher save restrictions in other aspects of the game to compensate for an OP tactic. Besides, I don't like tactics and prefer not to spend much time on it.

9. Possibly letting your ass man pick the team for each match, only being able to make changes to a certain extent. I am quite undecided on this one, but something I am considering.

10. Delegate everything match day related except for "Leads friendly matches". Meaning you will never to touchline instructions and team talks.

11. Rarely interact with players. So basically little morale boosting. Only allowed when "buttons are there". Like praising the best training first team player or praisning man of the match, or someone who has trained well according to a training report.

12. Ask for the DoF to negotiate contracts in most cases. I am a bit undecided about certain details here.

 

My experience is that if I use the preset 4-3-3 Gegenpress (and rotate properly), I will usually achieve borderline massive and boring succes in spite of these harsh restrictions. So any input regarding further save restrictions is greatly appreciated.

 

Also, as you can probably tell I like toying around with various save restrictions. It tweaks the saves in certain ways. I find it fun. New ideas are welcome.

Edited April 10, 2023 by danej

[danej]

[danej]

[Prolix]

Not much of the game left at that point, is there? You might as well just go watch an actual game. 

Edit: no disrespect meant by the way, if you enjoy this then by all means have at it. The "only presets" restriction is a pretty extreme one though! 

Edited April 10, 2023 by Prolix

[Daniel Evensen]

Wow, those are a lot of restrictions.

I just turn off stars and attributes.  I call it hardcore mode.

It's actually a little bit easier with stars and attributes turned off.  It forces you to pay more attention to statistics and to what your coaches and scouts say.  You learn over time that players with "poor" star ratings can play much better than you anticipated, and that some of the can't miss 5-star players actually play pretty poorly.

[Pafnus]

İ give transfers to the board. Just sales in my responsibility.. it makes game a lot harder and realistic

[Daniel Evensen]

On 10/04/2023 at 16:34, Pafnus said:

İ give transfers to the board. Just sales in my responsibility.. it makes game a lot harder and realistic

"Harder" is an understatement, in my opinion.  I tried that in FM21 with Rapid Wien, though I let the Director of Football handle the transfers.  We needed a striker, and I waited and waited and waited... and nobody came.  I think I abandoned the save when the transfer window closed without us getting a player in a position that had a big hole.

Not sure I've got the stomach for that experience again.  Huge respect to you for doing it!

[phd_angel]

I like the idea but unfortunately I delegate very little when I'm running small to mid size clubs (or I delegate things that have little impact in my club performance).

The reason is that AI frequently makes decisions that are quite unrealistic. IF AI were more realistic, I'd delegate as much as possible.

My motto here is not whatever it takes to win but whatever it takes to make FM more realistic...

Edited April 12, 2023 by phd_angel

[Pafnus]

1 saat önce, Daniel Evensen said:

"Harder" is an understatement, in my opinion.  I tried that in FM21 with Rapid Wien, though I let the Director of Football handle the transfers.  We needed a striker, and I waited and waited and waited... and nobody came.  I think I abandoned the save when the transfer window closed without us getting a player in a position that had a big hole.

Not sure I've got the stomach for that experience again.  Huge respect to you for doing it!

That can be so possible in real life.

 

May you can let yourself just one transfer etc etc

[danej]

7 hours ago, Daniel Evensen said:

"Harder" is an understatement, in my opinion.  I tried that in FM21 with Rapid Wien, though I let the Director of Football handle the transfers.  We needed a striker, and I waited and waited and waited... and nobody came.  I think I abandoned the save when the transfer window closed without us getting a player in a position that had a big hole.

Not sure I've got the stomach for that experience again.  Huge respect to you for doing it!

I haven't tried that myself, probably will at some point. That DoF-style is interesting.

In any case, I am convinced that even if you do this, and use all my other restrictions, you would still most likely do well enough to not get sacked. Even if the DoF occasionally does a terrible job, like your example where the squad has no decent strikers.

You should still do well enough IF you do a good job in other aspects of the game. Specifically I know from experience that the preset Gegenpress 4-3-3 DM wide is OP if you rotate enough (which is a lot). I am curious as to which tactics you used in your Rapid Vienna save?

Speaking of this, I will for the first time use the preset Vertikal Tiki-Taka 4-3-3 DM wide in a new save i just started (with Man Utd). I am looking forward to trying a new tactic. From what I have read, this tactic is OP as well, perhaps as good as the Gegenpress and probably almost as good in any case. But we'll see, I look forward to getting first hand experience with this.

If the Vertical Tiki-Taka tactic turns out to be almost as OP as the Gegenpress, and thus potentially boring in the long run, I consider trying the preset 4-3-3 Control Possession and/or Wing Play later on. I don't think they are even close to OP. Mediocre at best probably, since there is little or no high press in those tactics. Using such tactics could be a tough challenge I think.

[danej]

5 hours ago, phd_angel said:

I like the idea but unfortunately I delegate very little when I'm running small to mid size clubs (or I delegate things that have little impact in my club performance).

The reason is that AI frequently makes decisions that are quite unrealistic. IF AI were more realistic, I'd delegate as much as possible.

My motto here is not whatever it takes to win but whatever it takes to make FM more realistic...

Yes I also appreciate realism a lot.

So far in my rather brief FM career (since FM21), I have never managed really bad/lower league teams. The worst I have manage was 2.5 star rep Sunderland when they were in League One in FM21 and FM22. So I have no lower league experience so far. But I trust that you are correct.

Out of curiosity, could you give expamples/details as to which unrealistic stuff is done by the DoF or other staff members if you delegate stuff to them in bad clubs?

[phd_angel]

8 hours ago, danej said:

Yes I also appreciate realism a lot.

So far in my rather brief FM career (since FM21), I have never managed really bad/lower league teams. The worst I have manage was 2.5 star rep Sunderland when they were in League One in FM21 and FM22. So I have no lower league experience so far. But I trust that you are correct.

Out of curiosity, could you give expamples/details as to which unrealistic stuff is done by the DoF or other staff members if you delegate stuff to them in bad clubs?

Hello. I delegate press interviews to my ass manager. But if I delegate hiring, firing, and training of players and staff, I'll find that AI will hire players I don't need, sell players at a lower value I can get, waste money hiring and firing staff and give coaching badges to staff I want to fire, not to mention renewing contracts that should be left on a month by month basis or terminated. It misses out on much needed optimization. These are main examples I recall from top of my head.

Edited April 12, 2023 by phd_angel

[Conardo]

Best restriction: Playing while using the LLM-RULES!

 

[ExeChris]

I get a bit triggered looking at all the players available and thinking that there are so many that I don't know who to sign and I don't want to go through all of them.  So once I decided that I would only sign players with double-barrelled names (ie Ward-Prowse, Wan-Bissaka).  It certainly makes it more interesting at lower levels. I did include youth players coming through by adding '-Youth' to all of them to make them valid players.

[Pafnus]

5 saat önce, Conardo said:

Best restriction: Playing while using the LLM-RULES!

 

What is LLM- RULES

[Hovis Dexter]

6 hours ago, Pafnus said:

What is LLM- RULES

Lower League Management. Have a look at The 9llamas for an excellent insight

[danej]

12 hours ago, Conardo said:

Best restriction: Playing while using the LLM-RULES!

 

Those restrictions are much less tough than the ones I describe, at least when I read about them here: Guide to Lower League Management - Football Manager 2023 - FM23 - FM2023 (fminside.net)

So this would make the saves easier for me I think. If anything, I am looking for the opposite.

Edited April 13, 2023 by danej

[danej]

10 hours ago, ExeChris said:

I get a bit triggered looking at all the players available and thinking that there are so many that I don't know who to sign and I don't want to go through all of them.  So once I decided that I would only sign players with double-barrelled names (ie Ward-Prowse, Wan-Bissaka).  It certainly makes it more interesting at lower levels. I did include youth players coming through by adding '-Youth' to all of them to make them valid players.

He, that thing with the double barrelled names is funny

[H_a_a_k_o_n]

26 minutes ago, danej said:

Those restrictions are much less tough than the ones I describe, at least when I read about them here: Guide to Lower League Management - Football Manager 2023 - FM23 - FM2023 (fminside.net)

So this would make the saves easier for me I think. If anything, I am looking for the opposite.

I kind of agree. The "just find players by scouting" was much harder "in the old days". But the one hour rule can make it difficult, but a bit hassle to implement. I am using LLM but i find myself advancing in the leagues and the game will be easy after a while. I try to restrict myself to atleast have 4-5 players from academy, increasing the amount when it gets easier.

I find the youth challenge _very_ difficult because the clubs youth facilities has so much to say on the players generated, and have never had any success here.

[Hovis Dexter]

A couple of years ago somebody wrote about the Steven challenge he undertook. IIRC he took charge of Stevenage and only signed players called Steve, Steven, Stephen and other derivatives of the name.

[2feet]

See here for lots of ideas for challenges:

https://fminside.net/challenges

 

 

[stevedaytona]

2 hours ago, Hovis Dexter said:

A couple of years ago somebody wrote about the Steven challenge he undertook. IIRC he took charge of Stevenage and only signed players called Steve, Steven, Stephen and other derivatives of the name.

As someone born 10 miles from Stevenage and with a first name of Stephen, I like this a lot! ;)

[Maviarab]

My next journeyman will only be with clubs within 10 miles of a coastline.  Looking to buy a boat soon and bugger off around the world, so thought it seemed an interesting idea challenge wise.

[danej]

An idea I am pondering: Only use non-pressing preset tactics. Specifically this means that I can't use Gegenpress, Vertical Tiki-Taka and Tiki-Taka. I would probably try Control Possession or Wing Play.

[Daniel Evensen]

13 hours ago, Maviarab said:

My next journeyman will only be with clubs within 10 miles of a coastline.  Looking to buy a boat soon and bugger off around the world, so thought it seemed an interesting idea challenge wise.

I love this idea, by the way.  This is very creative!

[phantombandit]

The things I do to make a save more challenging usually revolve around registration rules. Making it so you can only have 3 non national players in a smaller league is a real challenge.

 

Honestly, best challenge is default tactics only. They are... pretty bad.

Edited April 15, 2023 by phantombandit

[Maviarab]

10 hours ago, Daniel Evensen said:

I love this idea, by the way.  This is very creative!

Heh thanks.  Can imagine I'd be stuck at some clubs for a while while waiting for specific ones to become available.  Currently collating a list around the world of said clubs, actually a lot easier said than done.  I like the idea though as forces to choose/pick clubs you may not have done previously, obviosuly this restriction elimiates the vast majority of 'big' clubs too...looking forward to it, just waiting for Dave to finally finish and release v3 of his around the world.

[mikcheck]

Since I like to spend many years in the same club, I normally put tactical and scouting restrictions.

In terms of tactics, I don't use those that can take advantage of AI, like full pressing and all out attacking. It's actually the opposite, I user low/mid block tactics.

In terms of scouting, I don't use player search, I just scout/buy players that my scouts recommend. CA/PA starts are also removed.

I also play with starts instead of player attributes

[qazwsx]

A few years ago I managed a club in the second division in Chile. The team was predicted to finish last in the league but half way through the season I was in first place and dominating. Of course it is fun to win but it felt a bit too easy. So I started to think what the reason of my success was and it was easy to find... I had signed 11 new players during offseason and when checking the other teams the average was about 2-3. I think squad building is what gives us the biggest edge versus the AI managers.  So how to make the game harder?

I started to use Action Points. When I am signed to a contract I receive 1 point for each day of the contract. If i sign a contract starting 1 July and it ends 30 June next year I will receive 365 points. In the case I would be fired I have to pay back points, if I am fired 100 days before my contract ends my AP-saldo is reduced with 100 points. If my AP-saldo should then go below zero it is game over, I would have to end the save.

I have a list of actions that cost points... signing a player, either as a free agent or through a transfer from another club, will cost me 150 points, loaning a player for the full season cost 60 points, signing staff 10 points and so on.

Resigning players and staff under contract cost no points. Neither do signing players from the youth intake.

I may also earn points... selling a player will increase my saldo by 60 points, gaining promotion 100 points and so on.

The beuaty of the system is that you could tailor it to what you believes gives you an edge over the AI and so making the game a real challenge. Maybe taking control of certain staff responsibilities should cost points, forcing you to delegate more. Maybe introducing a new tactic during the season will cost some points. 

Of course you have to do some bookkeeping, but it is not too demanding. 
 

[danej]

This makes me think - I guess two of the biggest advantages on has over the AI led teams, even if you are rather bad at playing the game, is:

1) It is quite easy to avoid making signings that are bad value for money. Most signings made by AI-led teams are excactly that, bad value for money

2) It is quite easy to pick a very strong tactic, like the preset 4-3-3 DM wide Gegenpress

 

So it easily gets to a point where you need quite a bit of creativity to avoid the boredom of easy saves where massive succes is pretty much a foregone conclusion.

 

I wish there were difficulty modes in the game, ultra hard etc. So one wouldn't need to think out all sorts of save restrictions.

[MrCell0phane]

On 11/04/2023 at 22:55, Pafnus said:

That can be so possible in real life.

 

May you can let yourself just one transfer etc etc

See Everton...

[Draakon]

I play youth only save with a rule that I have to sell the player if certain value is met buy another club (around £40m).

It keeps it a bit challenging, because I'm bound to lose most of my best players at some point before they turn 25 years old, but if the youth system is built up they can be replaced. Youth only save also forces you to change tactics from time to time because instead scouting for players who fit your tactics you need to tweak your tactics around the players you have. So a lot of PI-s for me. On the other hand there is a risk that at some point you are short of players in certain positions because the academy doesn't give you any and you need to go on with a mediocre goalkeeper or left-footed right back or something like that.

At the same time youth only save renders scouting and recruiting pretty much useless. Opposition report is the only value they provide and their scouting reports are generally just overview what's going on in footballing world. I skip all recruitment meetings and my scouting staff gets handsomely paid without any serious responsibility, so we're good

I've found Champions League impossible to win with youth only rule. I've reached quarter finals several times, but no further, because in top eight you're bound to go against big clubs and Liverpool, Manchester City, Arsenal and Bayern have become too much of an obstacle. Perhaps I haven't found a proper tactics for those games. 

 

I agree that morale has a huge impact on the game. Also tactical familiarity plays role - if you have the core of the team in place and they train their roles every day and play side-by-side and go from one winning streak to other it's very powerful recipe and you're not easily derailed by competitors.