Difficulty

[DP]

29 minutes ago, whatsupdoc said:

Agree with the above.

With Fulham I have a starting budget of 80m in season two and can easily get 150m in sales. I did budget well and got 2 big sales to Saudi though... And most EPL clubs could get decent figures if they sold key players after a decent season. So idk how unrealistic that is. 

I can sign most wonderkids and already have 10 of the world's best youngsters I cluding Baldanzi, Veloso, Gray, Pavlovic, Ribeiro etc.

Leaving this aside, what makes it easier this year is that play feels more hard coded and not impacted enough by attributes. 

Players with low pressing/fitness/work ethic attributes can still press well, or play at a high tempo... 

And this is what makes those skins that hide attributes useless. They’d be great if the underlying systems were not ‘questionable’ but I’m not sure I trust looking at how many chances a player converts over a season as I don’t know if it’s because he’s a good player or if he’s playing in a role that makes chances easier to convert. 

[whatsupdoc]

27 minutes ago, DP said:

And this is what makes those skins that hide attributes useless. They’d be great if the underlying systems were not ‘questionable’ but I’m not sure I trust looking at how many chances a player converts over a season as I don’t know if it’s because he’s a good player or if he’s playing in a role that makes chances easier to convert. 

True 

[phnompenhandy]

1 hour ago, DP said:

And this is what makes those skins that hide attributes useless. They’d be great if the underlying systems were not ‘questionable’ but I’m not sure I trust looking at how many chances a player converts over a season as I don’t know if it’s because he’s a good player or if he’s playing in a role that makes chances easier to convert. 

How does that make the skin useless? It merely makes it more realistic. These are discussions football fans and pundits have in real life.

[whatsupdoc]

3 hours ago, phnompenhandy said:

How does that make the skin useless? It merely makes it more realistic. These are discussions football fans and pundits have in real life.

Think he's explained it pretty clearly above.... 

It's tough to tell if performance is coming from a role/tactic the engine likes or from their quality. 

E.g. Personally I get better team and individual performance when using an AF in most systems than I do with other striker roles. Even if they player is totally unsuitable. 

Edited December 30, 2023 by whatsupdoc

[phnompenhandy]

6 minutes ago, whatsupdoc said:

Think he's explained it pretty clearly above.... 

It's tough to tell if performance is coming from a role/tactic the engine likes or from their quality. 

Yeah - I'm saying pundits and fans do discuss whether a player is successful due to his talent or due to the tactics and co-players. It's not always clear-cut in real life. Millions are regularly wasted by clubs assuming a player is talented, then finding he's rubbish in the new team he's bought for.

[whatsupdoc]

1 minute ago, phnompenhandy said:

Yeah - I'm saying pundits and fans do discuss whether a player is successful due to his talent or due to the tactics and co-players. It's not always clear-cut in real life. Millions are regularly wasted by clubs assuming a player is talented, then finding he's rubbish in the new team he's bought for.

I think it's quite different. The impact from roles and tactics is stronger than irl. I have the feeling I could put a keeper up top as an AF in a 4231 and he'd do alright.

[DP]

5 hours ago, phnompenhandy said:

How does that make the skin useless? It merely makes it more realistic. These are discussions football fans and pundits have in real life.

Because the underlying systems are not a reflection of real life. That’s really not a criticism of SI as it’s still a game. 

But player roles and formations are still way more powerful than the player so the underlying performance stats will more likely be in response to the role they are playing in rather than their attributes. 

[El Payaso]

These two career update threads are also good examples of the issues I was talking about in my earlier messages. In my opinion, these are not career updates, but fairytales instead. In both cases, the human-controlled team was supposed to fight against relegation in season one (in the Portuguese example the team was even clearly predicted to finish last in the league). Still, the eventual outcome is something way different. In the first thread, the human-controlled team qualifies in Europe in the first season and ends up winning a double in season two. In the second example, instead of fighting against relegation, the human-controlled team is almost promoted to the Premier League, which it does after season two. 

We all know what happened with Leicester City a few years ago, but this was something that you could consider a real exception. Also, even though they managed to win the Premier League once, this was not a road to eternal domination and constant growth and as we know, the team was even relegated after last season. 

I would say that when talking about football management, at least half of the attempts should end up in a failure in terms of reaching the goals. And why something like that should not be the case in the game too? After all, you can play as many seasons as you want and manage as many teams as you want, so why shouldn't most of the time consist of struggling and failure and only a minority of the time be successful? That is what would make the game more career-type and probably also make winning something taste quite a bit sweeter. 

[NineCloudNine]

47 minutes ago, Litmanen 10 said:

 

I would say that when talking about football management, at least half of the attempts should end up in a failure in terms of reaching the goals. And why something like that should not be the case in the game too? After all, you can play as many seasons as you want and manage as many teams as you want, so why shouldn't most of the time consist of struggling and failure and only a minority of the time be successful? That is what would make the game more career-type and probably also make winning something taste quite a bit sweeter. 

There are posts in this forum each year from people who are struggling. Most FM players - like most players of every game ever made - are casual. They don’t read forums, they don’t research tactics, they don’t download data edits. They load up their favourite team, buy their favourite players and crack on. If this casual experience ended in failure and struggle as often as you suggest then the game would fail.

It is obviously good commercial sense for the game to be accessible to those casual players while offering the tools and depth for those who want to put more into it. The answer to the unrealistic scenarios you show here is not for the game to condemn casual players to a managerial career of failure and sackings, no matter how true to reality that is (and it is). Rather, players who actually want that realism have plenty of options to experience it - attribute masking skins, delegating transfers, avoiding player search, difficulty packs etc etc etc.

I have little sympathy for people who spend hours doing things in-game which they then come and complain are unrealistic and demand that SI make impossible. Just don’t do those things then!

Edited December 31, 2023 by NineCloudNine

[Andrew Marines]

16 ore fa, DP ha scritto:

Because the underlying systems are not a reflection of real life. That’s really not a criticism of SI as it’s still a game. 

But player roles and formations are still way more powerful than the player so the underlying performance stats will more likely be in response to the role they are playing in rather than their attributes. 

I quite disagree tbh.

Obviously the player is a lot stronger than the ai creating tactics and you can make half-players play great but these skins really add immersion and difficulty layers.

I'm one of the people playing an attribute-less save and playing really often full matches or close.

I created some really strong tactics but I can see which players are suitable and don't make mistakes.

Remember that reality is as you said. Players can perform much better in a certain context rather than an other, even if the tactic is quite the same. I got an example in my squad.

I bought Oskarsson(don't know the full name rn) as an AM(L-R),striker cause I saw his scoring qualities and, in his old team, his technical abilities. He was playing striker but he was fast and complete so I thought about using him in the advanced midfield.

Turns out he was below average with his passes and technicals and, even in the same role he was playing, he still made a lot of mistakes. He could score yes but you could still see he wasn't ready to play a full match.

These are the essences of attribute-less saves. Not knowing the attributes makes you try to understand if the player is just good or if he's in a great shape at the moment or his old team was so efficient his lack of skill was covered by his teammates. In my case it was the last one mixed with the second. I got a bad player, still trying to make him play to get a bit more money when i'll sell him but i won't gain that much.

With attributes i would have never made a mistake like this one

 

Edited December 31, 2023 by Andrew Marines

[g1nh0]

26 minutes ago, NineCloudNine said:

There are posts in this forum each year from people who are struggling. Most FM players - like most players of every game ever made - are casual. They don’t read forums, they don’t research tactics, they don’t download data edits. They load up their favourite team, buy their favourite players and crack on. If this casual experience ended in failure and struggle as often as you suggest then the game would fail.

It is obviously good commercial sense for the game to be accessible to those casual players while offering the tools and depth for those who want to put more into it. The answer to the unrealistic scenarios you show here is not for the game to condemn casual players to a managerial career of failure and sackings, no matter how true to reality that is (and it is). Rather, players who actually want that realism have plenty of options to experience it - attribute masking skins, delegating transfers, avoiding player search, difficulty packs etc etc etc.

I have little sympathy for people who spend hours doing things in-game which they then come and complain are unrealistic and demand that SI make impossible. Just don’t do those things then!

Totally agree, and this has been my absolute gripe with this year's FM - the game has become arcade in style, solely considered for the casual player and consequently a much more unrealistic experience. They can't claim they are now trying to create a realistic football management sim, because this year it most definitely is not.

Last patch of FM23 had a pretty decent level of difficulty, and this year's FM for me should have been an enhancement of that with all the additional ME features for this year. I'm thoroughly disappointed at the end result.

If SI are to go in a direction of trying to please different skill levels of players, then you need have to have two difficulty levels for the game - Casual, and Realistic. At the moment what has happened this year, I believe has caused much more discontent with players that want a realistic / more challenging game.

They also need to communicate with its player base if they are looking to prioritise casual players only – at least then there is then some justification as to why the game is what it is, and the regression of realism that has occurred this year can at least then be understood.

Edited December 31, 2023 by g1nh0

[phnompenhandy]

1 hour ago, Litmanen 10 said:

These two career update threads are also good examples of the issues I was talking about in my earlier messages. In my opinion, these are not career updates, but fairytales instead. In both cases, the human-controlled team was supposed to fight against relegation in season one (in the Portuguese example the team was even clearly predicted to finish last in the league). Still, the eventual outcome is something way different. In the first thread, the human-controlled team qualifies in Europe in the first season and ends up winning a double in season two. In the second example, instead of fighting against relegation, the human-controlled team is almost promoted to the Premier League, which it does after season two. 

We all know what happened with Leicester City a few years ago, but this was something that you could consider a real exception. Also, even though they managed to win the Premier League once, this was not a road to eternal domination and constant growth and as we know, the team was even relegated after last season. 

I would say that when talking about football management, at least half of the attempts should end up in a failure in terms of reaching the goals. And why something like that should not be the case in the game too? After all, you can play as many seasons as you want and manage as many teams as you want, so why shouldn't most of the time consist of struggling and failure and only a minority of the time be successful? That is what would make the game more career-type and probably also make winning something taste quite a bit sweeter. 

As a denizen of the Careers forum, I have to strongly agree with this. Most career threads are relentless and rapid success stories with no serious jeopardy. As others have said, casual players and many others want that, but it's not for me. That does put you and I in a minority, not interesting to those marketing the game.  So people like us have to create self-imposed restrictions - my current thread details a save that is Academy-Only and uses a no-attribute skin.

[whatsupdoc]

Over the years there's been a minimisation in the possible variety of play. Starting with moving away from sliders and into locked roles, and now it feels like it's gone too far.

The roles have set movements which is fine, but even a little research shows that attributes do not vary the distance, timing, quality of outcomes nearly enough. 

I first noticed it when I made a player with 1 for every pressing-relevant attribute and put him next to a guy up front with 20 for every pressing-relevant attribute. The difference in distance covered over 95 minutes was only 700 metres when asked to gegenpress. 

I then spent weeks trying to set up a f9 and then eventually flicked the role to AF and a totally unsuitable player became the top scorer in the league.

The game feels to me as though it's playing itself far too much now.

(Side note: the f9 is difficult to get working now because selecting the role doesn't change the movement of the IFs enough...)

Edited December 31, 2023 by whatsupdoc

[santy001]

But there hasn't been any switch to cater towards casual players. 

Most of it is a figment of peoples imagination. Vanilla world of warcraft was considered very difficult by the players of the time when it came to raiding, when it came back out in 2019 it was laughably easy. Pick up an old FM and it will be the same. The only slight caveat may be the loss of collective knowledge over time of the old FM's compared to vanilla WoW. 

FM will have one of the steepest learning curves a game series can have, certainly it will be comparable to paradox games like Crusader Kings. "Save scumming" is still a common thing within FM, people will talk about how they do it still in various threads.

I always see people latching onto this term of "proper realism" or "difficulty" like it actually means anything. In gaming the conventional way to simulate difficulty is to load up the AI with a bunch of cheats. More resources, quicker mobilisation times, actual scripting. No one ever actually outlines what these concepts really mean and how they would be implemented in the game. Those who do try to outline something usually touch on things that SI probably already are working on but need either end-user hardware to be capable of, or need actual advancements in AI technology to utilise. 

If you add a difficulty to FM in the "conventional" sense all you end up with is either something like your player attributes are scaled down in matches vs the AI. Which destroys the integrity of the attribute rating system. Or the AI is set up in a way where it can simulate X amount of matches in advance against your team to see if it can find a working solution. That completely destroys the element of fairness and instead pushes the game down a path of needing to make frequent changes just to try and defeat this AI counter-checking system. 

The most fulfilling difficulty and challenge you can get from FM is by far and away network games. A few hours a week on a network game when a couple of people are available and competing in the same leagues for the same honours and the adjustments you have to make are more intriguing than the base game can ever offer, and it likely will always eclipse anything SI can do because there can never be a "oh its scripted" excuse if you lose out to another player.

[NineCloudNine]

51 minutes ago, g1nh0 said:

Totally agree, and this has been my absolute gripe with this year's FM - the game has become arcade in style, solely considered for the casual player and consequently a much more unrealistic experience. They can't claim they are now trying to create a realistic football management sim, because this year it most definitely is not.

I'm not sure you do totally agree with me! 

My view is that the base game is ALWAYS going to aim to be casual-friendly (insofar as a game as complex as FM can be) and people who want it harder (which I believe is a small minority, most of whom will buy the game anyway) have the tools at their disposal to make it so. Primary among those tools is the player's own self-control.

Your suggestion of difficulties called "casual" and "realistic" kinda typifies the attitude of hardcore players of every game ever. I first experienced this in the 1980s when the Dungeon Master of my school tabletop Dungeons & Dragons game decided to implement hardcore rules ("when you die, you die"). Half the group left. The DM was actually fine with this because it meant that the ones left were the "real" players. The group then folded. I've seen similar things play out in different ways in the discussion groups and forums of dozens of games since.

[g1nh0]

18 minutes ago, NineCloudNine said:

I'm not sure you do totally agree with me! 

My view is that the base game is ALWAYS going to aim to be casual-friendly (insofar as a game as complex as FM can be) and people who want it harder (which I believe is a small minority, most of whom will buy the game anyway) have the tools at their disposal to make it so. Primary among those tools is the player's own self-control.

Your suggestion of difficulties called "casual" and "realistic" kinda typifies the attitude of hardcore players of every game ever. I first experienced this in the 1980s when the Dungeon Master of my school tabletop Dungeons & Dragons game decided to implement hardcore rules ("when you die, you die"). Half the group left. The DM was actually fine with this because it meant that the ones left were the "real" players. The group then folded. I've seen similar things play out in different ways in the discussion groups and forums of dozens of games since.

 

Sorry - I must have quoted the wrong post  That said, I was trying to post when the website was having issues a little earlier.

Anyhow, I meant the poster making reference to it being a fairytale of a game. Because at the moment, that's what it seems to be. 

But the thing with football, is for it to be realistic, there shouldn't be two difficulty levels, and the difficulty needs to mimic that of real life. It can't be solely designed for casual players as it is now.

So for gaming purposes, you need the two.

Edited December 31, 2023 by g1nh0

[whatsupdoc]

Example of attributes not mattering enough:

https://community.sigames.com/forums/topic/579205-football-manager-2024-official-feedback-thread/?do=findComment&comment=14282842

[NineCloudNine]

10 minutes ago, whatsupdoc said:

Example of attributes not mattering enough:

https://community.sigames.com/forums/topic/579205-football-manager-2024-official-feedback-thread/?do=findComment&comment=14282842

The meltown on these forums if this happened to someone in their FM game would be wonderful to witness: https://www.fourfourtwo.com/news/watch-arbroath-sub-goalkeeper-scores-amazing-35-yard-screamer-vs-raith-rovers

[whatsupdoc]

Just now, NineCloudNine said:

The meltown on these forums if this happened to someone in their FM game would be wonderful to witness: https://www.fourfourtwo.com/news/watch-arbroath-sub-goalkeeper-scores-amazing-35-yard-screamer-vs-raith-rovers

I'd love to see it 😂😭

[santy001]

10 minutes ago, whatsupdoc said:

Example of attributes not mattering enough:

https://community.sigames.com/forums/topic/579205-football-manager-2024-official-feedback-thread/?do=findComment&comment=14282842

It doesn't really prove anything though because there's so little context. Were the goals simple tap-ins/deflections etc or has the player gone on a mazy run, beat six players, pirouetted and smashed it into the top corner? Professional footballers, in any position, aren't devoid of ability outside of that position. Put a simple enough chance on a platter at close range and 99.9% of footballers will get the goal. 

It's then also only over a 2 game stint from the screenshots you've uploaded. There's space for a meaningful investigation into such a claim, but right off the bat you'll never know what the outcome would've been playing a conventional forward in those 2 games and whether they would have scored more. 

[El Payaso]

I think we also need to remember that SI has made most of the game features easily accessible to all of the players. Tactics are obviously one of the things that come to mind when talking about different aspects and the fact is that nowadays it doesn't even take minutes, but two or three clicks and about 10-15 seconds to set up a sensible style of play. In older versions of FM, you had to start from scratch and without any in-game guidance. 

It is also a fact that SI has now given 'casual players' years to learn how to use the different features of the game. Although, with the current level of difficulty, you don't have to learn as you are likely to be successful even without taking most of the newer areas of the game. I haven't, for example, paid a single bit of attention to the data centers, etc., because the game doesn't 'force' me to utilize these to be successful. This also shows me how lazy we people tend to be. I remember spending hours tinkering with tactics and training in those versions, where you had to create everything from scratch. Nowadays the game allows me to be really lazy and mainly concentrate on managing games and otherwise clicking continue. Would love it if the game would force me to pay more attention and actually learn the new features by making me underachieve if I didn't do so. 

I think this is also a bit of a downfall for many features of the game. People do not actively use them or study them as they are doing just fine without doing so. For me, this is stripping away the magic from the game and it's creating the feeling of an arcade game. 

[Andrew Marines]

2 minuti fa, Litmanen 10 ha scritto:

I think we also need to remember that SI has made most of the game features easily accessible to all of the players. Tactics are obviously one of the things that come to mind when talking about different aspects and the fact is that nowadays it doesn't even take minutes, but two or three clicks and about 10-15 seconds to set up a sensible style of play. In older versions of FM, you had to start from scratch and without any in-game guidance. 

It is also a fact that SI has now given 'casual players' years to learn how to use the different features of the game. Although, with the current level of difficulty, you don't have to learn as you are likely to be successful even without taking most of the newer areas of the game. I haven't, for example, paid a single bit of attention to the data centers, etc., because the game doesn't 'force' me to utilize these to be successful. This also shows me how lazy we people tend to be. I remember spending hours tinkering with tactics and training in those versions, where you had to create everything from scratch. Nowadays the game allows me to be really lazy and mainly concentrate on managing games and otherwise clicking continue. Would love it if the game would force me to pay more attention and actually learn the new features by making me underachieve if I didn't do so. 

I think this is also a bit of a downfall for many features of the game. People do not actively use them or study them as they are doing just fine without doing so. For me, this is stripping away the magic from the game and it's creating the feeling of an arcade game. 

Attribute-less saves at least make you watch the players section of the data centre.

I paid less than 1M for a 25 y/o wingback found using that tool and performed really good.

Still it's not enough. It isn't not because the tool isn't great but cause the ai is quite bad and you don't need it

[DP]

2 hours ago, Andrew Marines said:

I quite disagree tbh.

Obviously the player is a lot stronger than the ai creating tactics and you can make half-players play great but these skins really add immersion and difficulty layers.

I'm one of the people playing an attribute-less save and playing really often full matches or close.

I created some really strong tactics but I can see which players are suitable and don't make mistakes.

Remember that reality is as you said. Players can perform much better in a certain context rather than an other, even if the tactic is quite the same. I got an example in my squad.

I bought Oskarsson(don't know the full name rn) as an AM(L-R),striker cause I saw his scoring qualities and, in his old team, his technical abilities. He was playing striker but he was fast and complete so I thought about using him in the advanced midfield.

Turns out he was below average with his passes and technicals and, even in the same role he was playing, he still made a lot of mistakes. He could score yes but you could still see he wasn't ready to play a full match.

These are the essences of attribute-less saves. Not knowing the attributes makes you try to understand if the player is just good or if he's in a great shape at the moment or his old team was so efficient his lack of skill was covered by his teammates. In my case it was the last one mixed with the second. I got a bad player, still trying to make him play to get a bit more money when i'll sell him but i won't gain that much.

With attributes i would have never made a mistake like this one

 

So how about when you buy from leagues where the match engine is the quick version or not even simulated at all? How are those players compared to ones in the full simulation match engine for your own league? The entire dynamics are completely different. 

[NineCloudNine]

29 minutes ago, Litmanen 10 said:

I think we also need to remember that SI has made most of the game features easily accessible to all of the players. Tactics are obviously one of the things that come to mind when talking about different aspects and the fact is that nowadays it doesn't even take minutes, but two or three clicks and about 10-15 seconds to set up a sensible style of play. In older versions of FM, you had to start from scratch and without any in-game guidance. 

It is also a fact that SI has now given 'casual players' years to learn how to use the different features of the game. Although, with the current level of difficulty, you don't have to learn as you are likely to be successful even without taking most of the newer areas of the game. I haven't, for example, paid a single bit of attention to the data centers, etc., because the game doesn't 'force' me to utilize these to be successful. This also shows me how lazy we people tend to be. I remember spending hours tinkering with tactics and training in those versions, where you had to create everything from scratch. Nowadays the game allows me to be really lazy and mainly concentrate on managing games and otherwise clicking continue. Would love it if the game would force me to pay more attention and actually learn the new features by making me underachieve if I didn't do so. 

I think this is also a bit of a downfall for many features of the game. People do not actively use them or study them as they are doing just fine without doing so. For me, this is stripping away the magic from the game and it's creating the feeling of an arcade game. 

Be careful not to fall into "back in the day..." thinking ! Back in the day the forums were full of complaints about how fiddly and frustrating the game was!

You do raise an interesting point about features being present but not required. This is something I think SI have got wrong. For a new or returning player FM looks extremely daunting. There are plenty of features whose full details remain a mystery even now. The number of 'inductions' you have to take and screens you have to click through is pretty intimidating. It is thus ironic that many of these features turn out to be unnecessary and can be ignored, or delegated. So weirdly the game LOOKS hardcore but PLAYS casual, which risks pleasing no-one.

[Andrew Marines]

23 minuti fa, DP ha scritto:

So how about when you buy from leagues where the match engine is the quick version or not even simulated at all? How are those players compared to ones in the full simulation match engine for your own league? The entire dynamics are completely different. 

Right now i'm doing the world super league so i gotta buy only in those competitions.

It's quite your choice on how many countries you load and how you behave on those who are not loaded.

Remember that there's a limit on the computational power of our PCs and we cannot do anything about it.

When i played a "normal" save, i usually load all europe+some countries i'd like to watch closely. My pc can support all that but it cannot support all the world

[Gh0zt]

Tbh I think SI are damned if they do and damned if they don't when it comes to difficulty. Take fatigue/injuries, people complain all the time about "too many injuries" but the stats show the game has way less injuries than irl. I can play a high intensity tactic all season by micromanaging training and rotating players. Same with morale, it's too easy to manage by patting players on the back every week for training well or smashing an amateur side 14-0 in a friendly, and that extra boost from morale is significant. But people would rage quit if they had half a dozen of their first 11 injured as happens to real life teams.

For new/casual players, sure the game is daunting and a challenge, really because most of the playerbase are not gamers, I mean they're football fans who play FM and maybe Fifa and nothing else. I actually find the same when it comes to other strategy/sim games, I know people into stuff like Crusader Kings but that's it... So they're not into metagaming and looking behind the curtain, but if you do and learn the meta, most OP tactics, player roles and attributes etc. it does become very easy. I genuinely think the match engine looks better than ever in FM24 but it's a breeze to play no matter what team you pick.

Edited December 31, 2023 by Gh0zt

[Dong21]

On 31/12/2023 at 08:57, Litmanen 10 said:

These two career update threads are also good examples of the issues I was talking about in my earlier messages. In my opinion, these are not career updates, but fairytales instead. In both cases, the human-controlled team was supposed to fight against relegation in season one (in the Portuguese example the team was even clearly predicted to finish last in the league). Still, the eventual outcome is something way different. In the first thread, the human-controlled team qualifies in Europe in the first season and ends up winning a double in season two. In the second example, instead of fighting against relegation, the human-controlled team is almost promoted to the Premier League, which it does after season two. 

Just to add my two cents worth, since it’s my career that you’ve used as an example. I do agree that the game is slightly easier than it should be. That said, I don’t think my save is the great example to support your points that you think it is.

Firstly, I am not a casual player. I have been playing this game religiously for over 15 years and therefore think I have a pretty good handle on tactics, transfers, squad building and the improvements you need to make off the pitch (e.g. staff and infrastructure) to be successful. I therefore would expect to out-perform expectations generally.

Secondly, the big factor that changed the course of my save was that in October of the first season, a sponsor injected £15m into the club and I decided to invest those funds into signing a team of free agents. Now whether a financial investment like that is realistic is a separate discussion, but the point is that after signing the new players I now had arguably the sixth best squad in Portugal and our wage spend matched that. So by the end of the season our performance was on par with expectations (we finished sixth).

Finally, the Portuguese league has some really good teams and then the rest are pretty poor. So it’s not that unrealistic that with some really good management and signing better players (with the budget to support that) that a club could become ‘best of the rest’. We came 6th first season, 5th in our second and I am hoping to finish 4th in my current campaign. The long-term aim is to challenge the ‘big three’ at the top of the table, which is a good enough narrative / challenge to keep me interested. 

Edited January 1 by Dong21

[El Payaso]

On 01/01/2024 at 19:18, Dong21 said:

Just to add my two cents worth, since it’s my career that you’ve used as an example. I do agree that the game is slightly easier than it should be. That said, I don’t think my save is the great example to support your points that you think it is.

Firstly, I am not a casual player. I have been playing this game religiously for over 15 years and therefore think I have a pretty good handle on tactics, transfers, squad building and the improvements you need to make off the pitch (e.g. staff and infrastructure) to be successful. I therefore would expect to out-perform expectations generally.

Secondly, the big factor that changed the course of my save was that in October of the first season, a sponsor injected £15m into the club and I decided to invest those funds into signing a team of free agents. Now whether a financial investment like that is realistic is a separate discussion, but the point is that after signing the new players I now had arguably the sixth best squad in Portugal and our wage spend matched that. So by the end of the season our performance was on par with expectations (we finished sixth).

Finally, the Portuguese league has some really good teams and then the rest are pretty poor. So it’s not that unrealistic that with some really good management and signing better players (with the budget to support that) that a club could become ‘best of the rest’. We came 6th first season, 5th in our second and I am hoping to finish 4th in my current campaign. The long-term aim is to challenge the ‘big three’ at the top of the table, which is a good enough narrative / challenge to keep me interested. 

Much appreciated. I have read your whole career update and have to admit that you have been doing a good job and it is quite obvious that you are good at this game and know what you're doing. 

However, you were already overachieving quite heavily even before you got that financial boost that has helped you greatly. This kind of squad overhaul/re-build also shows two quite big fragilities within the game: first of all, you are able to make this kind of rebuild without any real competition from the AI, and secondly: even when you fill your team with new players in a short period of time, there is no real downfall in terms of cohesion and performances. 

Also, you need to consider the European success that really is a Cinderella story. You must have faced many really good teams there, yet still, you were able to win a European competition on your first try, when most real-life managers, even good ones, fail to do this through their entire career. 

In general, when you take into account the starting circumstances, your career is already more impressive than most of the real-life managers, even though you have only managed two full seasons. 

[NineCloudNine]

Looking through the various career and club forums, one major common theme is how easy it is to buy so many of the world's best young players. The same wonderkids appear in save after save. It's much easier to do this in FM than in the real world and it's much less of a risk because the player has knowledge that their in-game manager avatar does not.

This would be easy enough to fix, but I very much doubt SI has any incentive to do so because building a fantasy version of your team is such a major motivation for so many players, including many who are invested and experienced enough to chart their progress on these forums.

But if you don't want it to be that easy, there are tools available to make it harder. Just as there are tools to make it easier if you're finding it hard (or don't want it to be a challenge). It does frustrate me a little reading people who find it easy wanting SI to make it harder while people who find it hard want SI to make it easier. Seems to me everyone has the game they want at their fingertips, if only they would grasp it.

Edited January 2 by NineCloudNine

[ejleal]

2 hours ago, NineCloudNine said:

But if you don't want it to be that easy, there are tools available to make it harder. Just as there are tools to make it easier if you're finding it hard (or don't want it to be a challenge). It does frustrate me a little reading people who find it easy wanting SI to make it harder while people who find it hard want SI to make it easier. Seems to me everyone has the game they want at their fingertips, if only they would grasp it.

Yes, but if i want to play in a more realistic way (as an head coach) and delegate everything regarding transfers to the DOF, the game doesn't adapt and still treats you as you are in charge of everything. And so, when the dof rejects an offer, you can still have the player angry at you for not letting him leave (with all the problems that can come with it), you still have a grade for transfers from the board and so on. 

i understand in the case of an youth-only save, that the game can't recognize what you are doing, but if i want to delegate certain things to other staff, such as transfers for example, the game should be able to recognize the fact and change accordingly.

 

 

[NineCloudNine]

1 hour ago, ejleal said:

I understand in the case of an youth-only save, that the game can't recognize what you are doing, but if i want to delegate certain things to other staff, such as transfers for example, the game should be able to recognize the fact and change accordingly.

Yes I agree, it should.

Edited January 2 by NineCloudNine

[sthptngomad76]

4 hours ago, NineCloudNine said:

Looking through the various career and club forums, one major common theme is how easy it is to buy so many of the world's best young players. The same wonderkids appear in save after save. It's much easier to do this in FM than in the real world and it's much less of a risk because the player has knowledge that their in-game manager avatar does not.

This would be easy enough to fix, but I very much doubt SI has any incentive to do so because building a fantasy version of your team is such a major motivation for so many players, including many who are invested and experienced enough to chart their progress on these forums.

But if you don't want it to be that easy, there are tools available to make it harder. Just as there are tools to make it easier if you're finding it hard (or don't want it to be a challenge). It does frustrate me a little reading people who find it easy wanting SI to make it harder while people who find it hard want SI to make it easier. Seems to me everyone has the game they want at their fingertips, if only they would grasp it.

Wasn’t more competitive transfer dealings from the AI/youth development meant to be a headline feature of this edition? It’s one of the reasons I bought the game

[NineCloudNine]

8 hours ago, sthptngomad76 said:

Wasn’t more competitive transfer dealings from the AI/youth development meant to be a headline feature of this edition? It’s one of the reasons I bought the game

I think better squad building was, especially playing high potential young players. Smarter transfer dealings should be part of that. I haven’t noticed any improvement.

It would certainly help to have AI teams more actively recruiting for potential, but a human player with meta knowledge of wonderkids will always win if they use that knowledge to fill their team with dead-cert cheap-to-buy stars.

Edited January 3 by NineCloudNine

[Domoboy23]

On 31/12/2023 at 10:22, whatsupdoc said:

Over the years there's been a minimisation in the possible variety of play. Starting with moving away from sliders and into locked roles, and now it feels like it's gone too far.

The roles have set movements which is fine, but even a little research shows that attributes do not vary the distance, timing, quality of outcomes nearly enough. 

I first noticed it when I made a player with 1 for every pressing-relevant attribute and put him next to a guy up front with 20 for every pressing-relevant attribute. The difference in distance covered over 95 minutes was only 700 metres when asked to gegenpress. 

I then spent weeks trying to set up a f9 and then eventually flicked the role to AF and a totally unsuitable player became the top scorer in the league.

The game feels to me as though it's playing itself far too much now.

(Side note: the f9 is difficult to get working now because selecting the role doesn't change the movement of the IFs enough...)

FWIW I don't think distance covered is a good metric to use for pressing.

It's a good metric for sheer running about aka distance covered, but there's a difference between that and pressing effectively.

I'd like to think the only attributes that would majorly effect distance covered would be stamina, work rate and the tactical set up (which I'm presuming you did change but for whatever reasons, maybe faulty from the ME, hasn't had a major change) also let's remember the stats aren't that reliable that FM produces.

Lastly, I guess it's always important to remember that a rating of 1 for an attribute is a 1 for a professional footballer. So still far beyond any of us mere mortals!

If a player with 1 for passing and long shots when compared with a player with 20 for both was consistently performing on a par at the same standard... Sure an issue. If they are able and do occasionally do good passing or score worldies? Not an issue imo. I've even seen Andy Booth round a keeper one in real life and he was just a head on a stick!

[Freakiie]

3 hours ago, NineCloudNine said:

I think better squad building was, especially playing high potential young players. Smarter transfer dealings should be part of that. I haven’t noticed any improvement.

It would certainly help to have AI teams more actively recruiting for potential, but a human player with meta knowledge of wonderkids will always win if they use that knowledge to fill their team with dead-cert cheap-to-buy stars.

Looking at my long term save in FM24 I think the AI is pretty decent at this actually. However, the AI will never be as aggressive with wonderkids as the player, as they will focus a large part of their budget on improving their first team. Now whether all those transfers make sense is a different question, but the result is that their budget for youngsters is only a small part of their total budget. Meanwhile, a lot of players basically refuse to ever make a big transfer and just use their entire budget to hover up wonderkids and with the way development in FM works, you basically never get punished for this, especially with real players as the players in the -9 and above PA ranges will always be at worst solid players.

Of course with newgens, you will run into the occasional case of a 5* rated wonder kid actually having hit their PA at 19 already and never developing, but those cases are pretty rare. Also, as experienced player it's not hard to notice when a player like that heavily stalls in their development and to just sell them on while they're still young. At the very least it's unlikely you will incur major losses and if you picked him up from a smaller nation you can still easily make a profit even.

AI wise, I would like to see them be more aggressive outside of the transfer window and I find the current situation where 15 European clubs are looking at some Brazilian youngster, but 14 are unwilling to make an offer outside of the transfer window and 1 lacks funds rather silly. In real life they would definitely try to be the first to make an offer in the hopes of being faster than their competition. As for players hovering up the real life wonder kids, unless SI starts randomizing these much more heavily at the beginning of a game this will probably always be a thing for the players that want to play this way. It makes little sense to have Marcos Leonardo be wanted by every major club the moment you start a game of FM when in real life he sat at Santos the entire summer and is now being linked with Spartak Moscow. Plenty of these kind of players will move to smaller clubs in Europe, the issue is just that in FM they're basically a guaranteed success, whereas in real life obviously a lot fail for various reasons, which is why real life clubs are much less aggressive in signing wonder kids.

[El Payaso]

When we talk about the difficulty of the game, I think we should also take into account the fact that SI has made most of the main features of the game very accessible. 

It was a fair point during the slider times to claim that building a successful style of play might take a lot of time and effort, even though there also were easier ways, which could see tactics being 'built' in just tens of seconds. This claim doesn't apply anymore and neither does the fairly popular "you need to be an expert of real football to build a successful tactic". Nowadays it is possible to build a well-rounded and working tactic with 2-3 clicks and also pick the ideal squad with the 'quick pick' option. 

Other features such as scouting and training are more complex, I think, but with these, you have the option to delegate them fully to one of your staff members. Also finding a talented member of the staff is a fairly simple and even easy process that takes you maybe a couple of minutes of gameplay, maximum. 

Also, we have to take into account some of the popular tools within the game that are at our disposal. Both staff and player search are so strong and comprehensive features that many 'hardcore' players don't even use them at all, because these make squad building and strengthening the non-playing staff quite easy. 

With these points taken into account, I don't see any good reasons, why it wouldn't be okay for SI to raise the bar a little bit even for the more casual players.