danej

Perhaps the OCD is a general problem and not particularly related to FM. Perhaps seek out psychological treatment if you can afford something of decent quality. And/or educate yourself on relevant matters, get ideas for tweaks you can try out regarding how you live your life. "Psychology Today" stands out to me as a great source. Most of their stuff has good quality and you can Google their content, e.g. like the links below. From what your write it seems like you have some personality traits, or whatever one could call it, that are bad for you and that positive change would do you well. Easier said than done of course, complex stuff. But on the other hand chances of growth and improved quality of life should be good if you are motivated to experiment with changes and possible seek qualified help. https://www.google.com/search?q="psyhology+today"+ocd&client=ms-android-samsung-rvo1&source=android-home&sxsrf=AB5stBj-aOstF2kL7W21fGbfjNwPkpnCXA%3A1689080482752&source=hp&ei=olKtZPWzKY6jkdUP-NSaiA0&oq="psyhology+today"+ocd&gs_lcp=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&sclient=mobile-gws-wiz-hp https://www.google.com/search?q="psychology+today"+obsessive+compulsive+personality+disorder&client=ms-android-samsung-rvo1&sxsrf=AB5stBiNBlmso0HP8-HNwTOqitafkaw3Rw%3A1689080550897&ei=5lKtZOytNtKIxc8P38SO6A4&oq="psychology+today"+obsessive+compulsive+personality+disorder&gs_lcp=ChNtb2JpbGUtZ3dzLXdpei1zZXJwEAMyBAgAEB4yBQgAEKIEMgUIABCiBDIFCAAQogQyBQgAEKIEOgoIABBHENYEELADOgYIABAHEB5KBAhBGABQtg1Y6FNg2FxoAXABeACAAc8BiAHHBJIBBTAuMy4xmAEAoAEBwAEByAEI&sclient=mobile-gws-wiz-serp

You could try the preset Gegenpress 4-3-3 DM wide. Very pressing tactic and incredibly strong, OP actually. As long as you do other crucial parts well, rotate sufficiently, manage player/team morale.

Preset Gegenpress is OP. At least the 4-3-3 DM wide.

I don't know. But in the long run you should keep the money. Money not spend is at the clubs bank account. All else being equal, if you spend little money as a manager, over time you will get a better budget and vice versa. Not necessarily from season to season but in the long run.

I never start players unless they have: At least excellent condition, and match fit (not excellent/tired) At most a medium match load or whatever it is called (how many minutes they have had the last two weeks) OR they have peak condition. At least one of the two must be in place for me to start the player. These few rules I feel are in itself enough to have a sound long term rotation and prevent players from ever getting jaded, ever getting more than low fatigue. And I almost always use all five subs before around the 72nd minute. Because usually players are tired and subbing makes sense. Plus getting people on the pitch at around the 73rd minute gives them a match rating and is good for development of young players.

Unlike earlier versions of FM, to me it seems that on FM23, 4-3-3 DM wide is the best preset Gegenpress. 4-2-3-1 no longer king.

So, I want to play with something very close to the preset 4-3-3 DM wide Gegenpress (see pic below). Because I love how it looks in the match engine. All other tactics I have tried look ugly and/or boring to me subjectively, and at the moment I am not interested in trying out other types of tactics. My main issue with the preset 4-3-3 DM Gegenpress is that it is too OP. For a long time I have insisted on only using preset tactics as part of my many save restrictions. In order to try and avoid massive overachievement. However, I think now is the time to try tweaking this preset tactic. It could limit me too much not to tweak. Although I basically would prefer to avoid it. I have little interest in tactics and would gladly stick to the preset 4-3-3 DM wide Gegenpress if it wasn't too OP. So, what to do? I would think that the thing to do is to tweak 1-5 of these five parameters out of possession: - Trigger press ("More often" or "Slightly more often" instead of the preset setting "Much more often") - Defensive line. Lower it from the preset "Higher" setting to "Standard". - Defensive Line, switch off the preset "Step up more" setting (on the right of the screen) - Line of Engagement. Lower it to "Mid block", not the highest "High press" line. - Switch off the "Prevent short GK distribution" option (upper right part of screen) As implied above, I would prefer to make as few tweaks as possible on the above mentioned four paramaters. I would like my tactic to look and feel as much as the preset 4-3-3 DM as possible. But without the tactic being too OP. Any input as to which tweaks I should go for? I could of course try out all sorts of combinations of tweaks to 1-5 of the mentioned five parameters. But it could take an eternity to try out many different variants. Some of you experienced heads in here probably have some knowledge regarding which tweaks should be among my main priorities to try out.

I mostly agree. However, it might have to be max 1-2 transfers per season in order for such a rule to actually work. It the aim is to stop overachieving. It is so easy to find great bargains in the game. It doesn't take many each season to keep the upward trajectory going. Unless you mess up in other aspects of the game, deliberately or not.

Personally I would love to have that as an option. More of a challenge.

Btw similar bug: Occasionally the loan manager accepts loan offers with less playing time than instructed. For example, if I instruct that only loan offers are to be accepted if it has playing time as at least a regular starter, the loan manager will still sometimes accept loan offers with fringe player or squad player. Most of the time he does it correctly and rejects such offers. But I would say that around 5% of the time he violates the instructions and wrongly accepts such offers. Happens in all my saves, also in the one already uploaded.

I disagree regarding the "don't pick big clubs" idea. My impression is that it doesn't really matter whether you pick a small or a big club. I am talking about relative overperformance. Performing much better than board expectations, media expectations, or how the same club would do if it had an AI manager for that given season. Once you learn the basics of the game, it is very easy to consistenly and massively overperform. Relatively overperform that is. Picking a small club will just delay the inevitable (succes at the grand stage might happen 10 years later with a small club than with a big club). Personally I find it just as boring and silly to get promoted in season 1-2 with some Vanarama North/South that was supposed to be one of the worst in the league, as I find it equally boring and silly to win the Prem in season 1 or 2 with Man Utd, a club that is after all much worse than Man City and Liverpool in FM23 (btw a good thing that Man Utd finally got a nerf, I believe that Utd were as good as City and Liverpool in many FMs before FM23 which was really silly). Otherwise I mostly agree I think. And as mentioned in other comments above, I am not certain whether difficulty levels are important. In any case I agree that a good thing about the game is that there are lots of ways of playing it, you can tailor it to your own prefences. Like my current experiments with occasionally messing up morale which so far feels great, making results more erratic and like IRL.

It should be uploaded now, called Mancester United 2

He. Yeah Wolves is a nutcase when it comes to transfers. Yeah I don't know enough about difficulty levels to be certain that it would work. Perhaps you are right. Perhaps it would just creat different problems and wouldn't be an overall improvement to the game. I don't know. In any case I personally think it is a little sad and frustrating that the game is so easy the way it is now. Although on the other hand it feels possible to create your own way of playing to replicate what you would like to see in the game, so I appreciate the freedom and the many ways you can play this game. Regarding the latter part: I play with rather extreme restrictions in all saves. Among many other things, I never never sign players based on my personal knowledge. I don't sign Kendrick unless the DoF signs him for me so to speak. I actually only sign players that the DoF signs (I sometimes veto/reject some of his signings). I would say I play at least 80% like a Head coach challenge. Among many other restrictions like never touching training, delegating all hiring of statt to the staff etc. In other words, I don't mind regens. I (unfortunately) won't perform any worse in a 2040 regen world than i would in the first season. But Dice Managing has potential hehe. Messing up morale from time to time can be quite entertaining. Feels realistic as well, more erratic performances, like almost any team IRL. I mostly agree regarding what you say about tactics. It is just that when I have tried other tactics, like Tiki-Taka, Vertical Tiki-Taka, Route One, Control Possession, I find them boring and/or ugly to look at. I love how Gegenpress looks in the games. However, I consider doing like someone suggesting and tweaking the Gegenpress to make it less OP. Like turning the high press and high defensive line down a knotch or two but keep the high tempo on possesion that I think looks cool.

Yeah. My impression is that morale has much too much impact on performances. Great morale and your team usually massively overperforms, and the opposite. A bad thing about morale is that it feels like robotic clicking. A meaningless waste of time. You learn which options work in player interactions, team talks etc. and you routinesly click in the perfect options all the time. Click click click. What's the point. Except from creating an illusion to oneself that I am this amazing manager, another Alex Ferguson or Pep.

I deliberately do most things quite poorly to try to avoid massively overacheving. For example I leave team talks (and most things) to staff, to not game the system. I talk of relative succes. Compared to how AI does with the same team. AI led Man Utd would on average finish perhaps 3rd - 5th in the Prem I would think. Worse than Man City and Liverpool, among the best of the rest. I think that a lot of players playing the game, most perhaps, can do better than that with Man Utd, with very little effort. Similarly I think that lots of people playing the game, most perhaps, can get a random League Two team to at least the CL knockout stages in 10 seasons, not far from what you describe. Perhaps SI wants the game to be easy. I imagine that they do pay a lot of attention to how they can make money. How can the please the largest possible number of players, so that they will buy future versions of the game as well. Perhaps most people playing the game like easy succes. Although on an unconscious level, not admitting to oneself how easy the game is. Perhaps most people get a kick out of the massive succes than can be had in the game if one wishes to perform as well as possible.

I don't think that transfers matter much in whether the board is pleased with you? I have often made totally different transfers than what the board wants and they never seem to care. The following summer they just switch their wishes to whatever type of transfers that are actually being made (whether by me of the DoF). I feel like that whole aspect has no real value, like it has little to no actual impact whether you meet the board's transfer target preferences or not. Anyway, I am not sure that SI wants to fix transfers. Perhaps many who pay for the game get a kick out of feeling like transfer gurus, getting the big coup over the line. I wouldn't be surprised if the majority of the customers for this game are like that. And if so, like in most organizations I imagine there the people at the top of the SI hierarchy have a huge focus on the bottom line. And they will do whatever it takes to please the highest amount of customers possible. This could also be why difficulty levels aren't introduced. It might feel less rewarding for a lot of those who play the game if they can only overachieve on lower difficulty levels. In any case, I still love the game in spite of all its flaws. And it does feel possible to find a playing style that suits your personal preferences. The game has improved to that extent, so many more different ways to play the game now than e.g. CM 01/02 which I played a lot back in the day. I just lost 2-1 at home to Sivasspor in the Europa League, followed by a 2-1 home defeat to Brentford in the league. I feel quite succesful in my quest to perform like real life Man Utd. I wonder how Fergie managed to perform so well a full 8 years after the Glazers came in. He surely deserves his knighthood. Performing well under the Glazers is an extraterrestial achievement.

Dice managing is working as well as I could possibly have hoped for. This feels like real life Man Utd.

Very well said, spot on. Regarding difficulty levels since you mention it: Personally I think civ-like difficulty levels might be preferable. It that existed I might never have felt the need to create a thread like this, and to put many hours into finding creative, but at the same time realistic ways to avoid massive overachievement. Anyway, I don't know the game well enough to really be able to call that one. Besides, at the end of the day money talks I guess. I assume that SI have reflected a lot on the topic of difficulty levels over the years. They might have their reasons to believe that the game will be sold to more customers in its current format instead of having civ-like difficulty levels. Perhaps a lot of players would lose the fun and satisfaction of doing well if they could only overachieve on lower difficulty levels. Personally I try to not overachieve at all, or only marginally. I lose interest in a save when I know that it's only a matter of time before I win frequent Premier Leagues or Champions Leagues or whatever would in real life be considered a massive overachievement for the club that I manage at that point in time. And the sad truth is that unless you play with a lot of restrictions, or become a Dice Manager or something, eventual succes is a foregone conclusion from day 1. It is so easy to graduately dominate the game more and more for each passing season. Because of inferior AI squad building etc. It really takes effort and creativity to maintain the same low long term level as AI led teams hehe. At least if you also want a feel of realism and don't bizarre save restrictions that have nothing to do with real life football.

I do this too and much more (see link below which describes most of the restrictions I use, now it is even more). It feels like the biggest challenge in the game (once you understand the basics) is to find a way to play it that is both sufficiently challenging, and at the same time a way of playing that you personally enjoy. It feels like an ever present trap to fall into patterns where you end up being so succesful that it becomes predictable and boring. Speaking of this, I like my new experiment where I deliberately mess up morale to varying extents. Both because I totally stopped doing standard players interactions such as praising good training, prasining man of the match, criticing bad traning, comfort injured players etc. And partially the dice rolling thing where I to some extent respond randomly and often stupidly in team talks and when players come to me with an issue like wanting higher wages. It feels so much fun so far. And feels more realistic. Real life management is erratic as well, performance goes up and down. This feels like replicating that. It feels realistic, fun, exciting that things can go well for quite a while, but at the same time that perfomance can fall off a cliff any time, and that crashing performance levels will happen from time to time.

Yeah. Speaking purely real life realism, at leaving aside however one subjectively prefers to play the game - I don't know of any real life managers who micro manage transfers. Not even old school managers in English football. Not a single manager negotiates salaries or wages I think, and barely noone cares the fee or wage is for a potential player in or out. At least not beyond immensely broad strokes related to the impact of the potential transfer of the remaining budget for wages and fees. So it certainly seems more realistic to at most have a partial say in potential transfers in and out. And probably not dealing with detailed negotiation at all. Perhaps at most some sort of veto right, being able to veto a negotiated deal ready to being finalised. On a sidenote, I am obviously still searching for my personal answer to the million dollar question: How do I prefer to play the game? What play style is the most enjoyable for me? Don't know if I will ever find an answer. It is a hugely complex issue, so many aspects of playing style that can possibly be tweaked, in so many ways. But it doesn't matter, I am beginning to realise that the journey is interesting in itself. It is easy, and perhaps not unfair, to blame SI that the game is too easy, as has been done many times in the past including in the thread I mentioned in the OP. However, at the same time it's probably a battle not worth taking. And in any case it can be seen as quite as interesting challenge to search for the playing style that suits you personally. Finding a personally enjoyable playing style, with the right level of challenge, seems within our grasp as customers. The game isn't that bad. It may have its flaws, perhaps being too easy. But SI has also done good work over the years, I would think, expanding the options that one as a player has to individualise ones style of playing the game.

Great ideas, thanks

I ask because I feel like the game is too easy. I am experimenting with variuos tweaks to my playing style in order to make the saves more challenging. Perhaps the main areas to focus on are those where you typically excel as a human manager compared to the AI-led teams. From the brilliant thread below I get the impression that the aspects of the game where AI underperforms include: Morale managing. Once you understand the basics, it is incredibly easy to build and maintain a sky high morale. When I look at AI led teams, they usually seem to have a more mediocre morale, lots of the players usually have their morale in the yellowish area. Squad building. AI led teams usually do a poor job getting good value for money when buying and selling players. Buy too expensively, sell/release too cheaply, don't sign enough young, undervalued players. As a human manager, you may need to implement aspects from the DoF-challenge in order to not overperform too much on this front. Or other similar tweaks. Tactics. AI often uses inferior tactics, mediocre non-high pressing tactics. You may need to do the same yourself in order to not overperform. Personally I love the Gegenpress though. I have tried other tactics and to me they all look ugly and/or boring. So personally I will probably stick with a Gegenpress tactics but experiment with more extreme restrictions in other areas of the game. Personally I hope that Gegenpress will receive a heavy nerf in the future, it is still very OP if you rotate enough and use your subs to keep the squad fresh. Speaking of this, AI led teams don't seem to rotate well, so their key players get knackered throughout the season. But that may be a minor thing that doesn't warrant a separate mention. Training schedules Set pieces instructions Recruiting staff I am considering implementing even more save restrictions than I already use (which include delegating most to staff, including most related to the points mentioned above). My goal - as SergeiG also seem to share in the brilliant thread below - is to perform on par or marginally better with whichever team I manage. On par with board expectations. Perform realistically, so that there is a real risk of getting sacked. At the same time I don't like implementing unrealistic restrictions like only buying players form a certain country, youth challenge etc., I appreciate realism. I basically want the game to feel like if I was the real life manager of the given team. So far I haven't cracked that code. I am still searching for restrictions/tweaks that yield the desired mediocre performance without losing the feel of realism. Or even more fun - I may become The Dice Manager (inspired by the great book "The Dice Man"). Rolling dice regarding various stuff, such as many player interactions and team meetings. Thus regularly messing things up by picking non-succesful options. At this moment in time I think this style is most likely what I will implement. It seems appealing to get varying, inconsistent performances. Such as things usually are in real life football, where you could do well, but things could derail at every given moment, like for example it did for Liverpool, Everton and Leicester this season, and for my belowed Danish side AaB (Aalborg BK) who got relegated for the first time since the 80's. Btw, as dannyfc and rp1966 rightly point out on page 2 in the thread below, I understand that it is hard, perhaps impossible, for SI to make the game more difficult and challenging. There seems to be many hindrances to developing a tougher AI without at the same time upsetting a large proportion of the customers. That is why I made this thread and hope to get input. It is probably more pragmatic and constructive to take responsibility myself and to keep experimenting with various restrictions and styles of playing the game in order to see what I find personally enjoyable. I doubt that SI will "fix the game" so that I would enjoy it without heavy restrictions and tweaking in the playing style in order to achieve the desired level of difficulty. That being said, I feel like the game has steadily improved over the years. There now seems to be more options for personal tweaking than there was before (what you delegate to staff among other things). On the other hand, a Civ-like difficulty setting with artificial boosts to the AI may be a way to go as several suggest in the thread below. But that topic seems to have been discussed extensively for years. So far SI don't wish to look at that (and the majority of the player base I assume). I guess they have their reasons. In any case I am not sufficiently experienced at the game to form an opinion on this yet, have only been playing FM for a couple of years (and some Championshp Manager back in the day).

The whole post was great, thanks for some great input. The quoted part makes me think - as a rule of thumb, it is probably often a bad idea to actively buy players in January as well? I mean, buy players who aren't transfer listed or unhappy, buy players where the selling club have no particular wish to sell. My sparse experience suggest that you mave have to pay more for such a player in January than what you could get him for in the summer. An example that comes to mind from the Man Utd save: In a January window, I bought Martin Terrier from Rennes. A decent player, but a paid 62m for him. I imagine that he would have cost less in a summer window. I ended up selling him a couple of years later to Real Madrid for 56m.

Update: I started trying casting dice with the initial team talk, just started a new Man Utd save. I ruled out certain options that were obviously crazy and roled a die between the rest. Don't really remember what I told the squad in that initial team talk. However, the end result was mixed, probably marginally positive. Anyway, I really like it so far. Now some players have "yellow" or "orange" morale initially, and not all green as usual. Out of curiosity I also checked another random team, AI managed Arsenal. They have similar initial morale. At least half their players having green morale, but also many in the yellow and orange region. I know this is a poor sample size, and my idea of occasionally messing with morale to a varying extent feels great so far. Also because I think that is what happens with AI-led teams. I would think that AI led teams rarely have brilliant morale where almost all players are in the green. They probably ususally have mixed and changing morale. So if you are like me, and one of your main aims is to try and avoid being too succesful, without at the same time sacrificing a lot of realism due to weird restriction, perhaps something like this is the way to go - keeping your player/team morale a bit erratic, so that you don't have an edge over AI in this regard. In any case I look forward to experimenting more with this, feels like I am on to something. And as mentioned, any input is greatly appreciated. Btw. I guess I partially got this idea because I am currently rereading "The Dice Man" by George Cockcroft / Luke Rhinehart. A fascinating book that I also read in my youth 20-25 years ago.