How much of Fm is luck/players/tactics/misc in your opinion?

OK quick boring history lesson. I used to play the old CM games to a insane degree, all the way from the very early amiga versions and I think even a C64 version.

Real life caught up with me and not having really dabbled much with FM at all I am finding it vastly different from the CM series I fell in love with and spent WAY too many hours playing.

What my biggest observation is that I can help but feel for all its depth and complexity, it all seems like a case of smoke and mirrors when it comes down to the actual match engine. I never feel like my decsions REALLY change anything and that luck seems to play a huge part in my results.

Dont get me wrong here I am enjoying the game, but I feel that I am missing that certain something that got me hooked on the old CM games. For me the fun of CM was building a team, scouting and seeing how they perform. It was simple in a way but fun.

With FM I feel like I am doing lots of tiny little things each match involving players, the press which really dont really mean a lot in terms of matches.

Another problem I am having is, I simply cannot tell anymore what to do during the games in terms of decsions to change the outcome of the game. I check what my assistant manager says and he basically says the same thing each week no matter who we play.

'Force player x on weak side' 'Press player x' etc

I personally feel there should be far more feedback given to the player to enable them to make decisions during the match, to fix problems, overcome situations etc. As it is now everything seems VERY much to much of a mystery in terms of what exactly is going on and how things work together.

You can read 10 different forum posts about tactics and almost everyone contradicts each other, to me that indicates that there is a huge amount of random factor going here and thats something that I dont find fun at all.

Just to clarify this isnt a rant, just posting my observations of the game and I am curious of other peoples opinions, what % do you feel of FM is based on luck/players/tactics etc.

I'll be posting a lot over the course of the next few days with a HUGE amount of questions, so please be kind and thank you for reading this far.

There is a certain amount of randomness in FM which frustrates a lot of people. You can play the same game reloaded over and over, same players and tactics etc and never have the same scoreline AND scorers. But for me, this just reflects real life.

BUT, the effects of tactics are quite sensitive, so minor tweaks (as in real life) can either win or lose you a tight game. On a basic level, these are fairly intuitive, but the tightest of tight games can be hard to work out. The new tactics wizard rumoured for FM10 should help.

I do feel that when I am 2-0 down on 60mins there is little I can do. Throwing everyone up front rarely works unless I only have a 1-goal deficit, which may be down to player motivation, but I'm not sure. A major change in formation has worked for me in the past, say from a 4-4-2 to a 3-4-3, but that is more luck than judgement. "May as well lose 3-0 as 2-0, but chances are we'll score 3!"

Ass man feedback should IMO relate as much to your own players and tactics as much as turning opposition onto weaker feet, eg, "[Our AMR] is playing a blinder and [their LB] looks sluggish" would tell you to focus passing on the right. I know he often says "[DC] looks like he is used to closing players down more often", but it's not much use if I have him man-marking someone. However, to be fair, the feature has only just been introduced, so will take a couple of editions to a) bed in and b) for SI to know exactly what people need from it.

Nice post, though. Makes a change to read about frustrations without wading through capital letters, bile, and swearing.