My Frustrations With FM

In no particular order, this is me venting my frustrations about a highly addictive, and great, but tactically flawed game

-once a striker is in a goal drought, it doesn't matter if he's the modern Pele, Eusebio, Puskas, Best all in one, cos he's not getting out of it

-your side will create 3 glorious CCC's, two of which will hit the bar, the other will be saved by a Gordon Banks like save, and you'll score from the resulting corner despite using no corner 'cheat' of any kind, and having all settings on mixed. hey, at least the goals scored stats are balanced

-strikers who havent scored in a while shoot with laser guided accuracy at the woodwork

-your defenders, no matter the total lack of pressure, and abundance of passing options, will aimlessly hoof the ball upwards time and time again. the opposition defence will do this too, but that hoof will be a magnificent ball over the top of your defence for their pacy striker to score

-opposition wingers will get to the byline and produce a brilliant cross for their otherwise donkey like TM to bury with a bullet header. your wingers, if they make it to the byline without being tackled, will hit their cross against the opposition fullbacks shins for YET ANOTHER CORNER.

-an attacking throw-in near the corner flag, means 3 more throw-ins from the same place, each of which is headed out by the oppositions tree-like CB.

-after no injuries in 5 smaller games, you will get 3 players stretchered off in that absolutely vital, league decider, with 2 of the substitutes going off injured with 'knocks' too.

-your tricky, pacey, skilful winger will be comfortably bundled off the ball time and time again, or have his cross easily cleared for a corner. the oppositions tricky, pacey, skilful winger will comfortably evade your defenders time and time again, draw fouls and cross brilliantly to the far post for a goal.

-your CB will have an awful game, littered with mistakes, score from a corner and get a 7.8. your MC will boss the game, with tackles, through balls, late runs, accurate shots and an assist and get a 7.5.

-you will never ever beat Arsenal. ever. ever.

-you will celebrate a successful and meaningful pass out of defence as much as a 35 yard screamer into the top corner.

thats all I can think of for now, anyone think of any others ?

**of course all of the above can be explained by a simple sentence - "its your tactics"

You know what mate, I get the same things happening to me every time. I mean, I'm sitting there watching a fully developed Carlos Vela not being able to hit a freakin' barn door, Adebayor getting out jumped by Gary Cahill of all people and Andrei Arshavin balloon the ball over the bar on a regular basis.

Oh yeah, and you forgot how lesser teams suddenly play like their world class and pass rings around your supposedly solid defence and no matter how many times you tell your players to close them down, they still can't close!

Arsenal are unbeatable at the emirates. Man U ditto.

-- a youthful fast center forward will constantly lose those ball chasing moments to an octegenarian DC with a combined pace/accel of 2.

-- after setting your GK to Distribute: <named player> using 'quick throws' he then constantly hoofs it up the pitch directly to the opposition MC's, whilst <named player> is unmarked and close by.

Iv beaten Man Utd at OT with West Ham. Iv won Serie A with Sampdoria in the first season with only 2 major signings (Santon, Rosina), Iv beaten all the big sides in Italy home and away with Palermo, Napoli (first season). And yet ive not even come close to beating Arsenal. In my current West Ham game, they've signed Ribery and Vagner Love!? Him and Adebayor are demi gods up front.

but that hoof will be a magnificent ball over the top of your defence for their pacy striker to score

Which would not be too bad apart from the fact the "pacy" striker has pace of 7.

the thing i hate the most is having 4 ccc's on a game and not scoring, and then the AI has only 1 non-ccc shot (usually a 35 yard shot) and scores

Yet whenever I use Adebayor, he, for lack of a better term, sucks.

You have 5 extremely good chances within a 30 minute spell of dominance, including an amazing 1 on 1 miss from your striker, only to have Adebayor score on the counter against your keep for Arsenal's first chance. They then dominate

pfffff i shredded arsenal 3-1 in the community shield with my liverpool squad, they may have scored but for the entire second half we controlled the game, also i was starting to lose patience with torres' massive goal drought then i read a guide on motivation and hey presto he starts scoring insanely well, finishing 2nd in world player of the year and 1st in striker of the year.

then i read a guide on motivation and hey presto he starts scoring insanely well

I have heard this guide mentioned a couple of times now - do you have a link?

http://img25.imageshack.us/img25/2432/typicalfm.jpg

My frustrations with FM can be summed up with the above screenshot!! Arghh!!

You won't want to hear this, but it is your tactics...

I suffer from one or two problems mentioned, such as dodgy throw ins, but i never see much of the others mentioned.

I'm not defending the game though, it has taken me ages to try and get the tactic working that i currently have now. It has taken a lot of time and tweaking which i understand shouldn't have to be done to get your players playing sensible football. BUT, as i say these "problems" that you are having can be rectified.

In no particular order, this is me venting my frustrations about a highly addictive, and great, but tactically flawed game

-once a striker is in a goal drought, it doesn't matter if he's the modern Pele, Eusebio, Puskas, Best all in one, cos he's not getting out of it AGREED

-your side will create 3 glorious CCC's, two of which will hit the bar, the other will be saved by a Gordon Banks like save, and you'll score from the resulting corner despite using no corner 'cheat' of any kind, and having all settings on mixed. hey, at least the goals scored stats are balanced

-strikers who havent scored in a while shoot with laser guided accuracy at the woodwork AGREED

-your defenders, no matter the total lack of pressure, and abundance of passing options, will aimlessly hoof the ball upwards time and time again. the opposition defence will do this too, but that hoof will be a magnificent ball over the top of your defence for their pacy striker to score

-opposition wingers will get to the byline and produce a brilliant cross for their otherwise donkey like TM to bury with a bullet header. your wingers, if they make it to the byline without being tackled, will hit their cross against the opposition fullbacks shins for YET ANOTHER CORNER. AGREED

-an attacking throw-in near the corner flag, means 3 more throw-ins from the same place, each of which is headed out by the oppositions tree-like CB.

-after no injuries in 5 smaller games, you will get 3 players stretchered off in that absolutely vital, league decider, with 2 of the substitutes going off injured with 'knocks' too.

-your tricky, pacey, skilful winger will be comfortably bundled off the ball time and time again, or have his cross easily cleared for a corner. the oppositions tricky, pacey, skilful winger will comfortably evade your defenders time and time again, draw fouls and cross brilliantly to the far post for a goal.

-your CB will have an awful game, littered with mistakes, score from a corner and get a 7.8. your MC will boss the game, with tackles, through balls, late runs, accurate shots and an assist and get a 7.5. AGREED!!

-you will never ever beat Arsenal. ever. ever.

-you will celebrate a successful and meaningful pass out of defence as much as a 35 yard screamer into the top corner.

thats all I can think of for now, anyone think of any others ?

**of course all of the above can be explained by a simple sentence - "its your tactics"

-The opposition players will always score a milestone goal against you.

Agreed. And yourpenalty taker with Penalty Taking 17 will miss only for the AI centre back with PT 6 will score.

http://img25.imageshack.us/img25/2432/typicalfm.jpg

My frustrations with FM can be summed up with the above screenshot!! Arghh!!

You played slightly better than Aston Villa yet they won? Never happens in real life.

No its not that, its just the number of times that happens. Like most things in FM, ie the things I listed above, if they happened occasionally and sparingly, then it would be fine, its just how often certain things happen.

I'm not frustrated because I'm losing, my West Ham side is 5th, above Man Utd and Liverpool, with 8 games to go. I'm just frustrated at the match engine's balancing acts. My goal incidentally, came from a corner, after missing the most gilt edged of gilt edged chances. Id prefer to score from one of the chances and miss the corner chance!

No its not that, its just the number of times that happens. Like most things in FM, ie the things I listed above, if they happened occasionally and sparingly, then it would be fine, its just how often certain things happen.

Well if you keep seeing that kind of result then I can understand your frustration, but personally whenever I see continual failure or errors in certain areas of my team I tend to look for ways to eliminate them and ultimately end up constantly tweaking my selection, tactics, teamtalks and man management techniques to adapt to new problems as they show up.

What is typical FM for me is tweaking constantly to improve areas of my team and shore up problems or weaknesses and sorting out X area or Y area and then sorting out the knock on effects on Z area and so on, and then I find the season is over and I have actually done as well as I was hoping overall.

I play a similar way, I just find that the specific flaws of my team - eg. a CB with lower composure, a winger with low strength and bravery, a striker with low work rate, are exposed way more by the match engine, than my AI opponents deficiencies. Eg. My pacy winger is too weak to get by his opposition fullback, whilst my full back is too slow and not positionally aware enough to track my opponents pacy winger.

I don't use one 'tactic', hence why I've never downloaded any, but instead use a fluid, constantly tweaked set of instructions to suit my players, and how effective they would be against whoever im playing. Its just the match engine can throw up some of the most frustrating performances and results, it leaves you scratching your head at how to solve them, without signing -10 PA superstars to destroy your opponents based on sheer talent alone, and using a corner exploit.

My guess is that you're taking notice when unlikely negative events happen to you or unlikely positive events happen to your opponents, while failing to notice the opposite and all the "normal" events.

Just my 2 cents...

"thats all I can think of for now, anyone think of any others ? "

Sure m8.

- My technically gifted players (great technique, dribbling, first touch all 15+) keep dribbling the ball out of the pitch through the touchline or baseline when under no pressure at all.

- Good, great corner takers fail to deliver most of their corners onto the pitch.

- Fullbacks are stupid both without and with the ball no matter what.

- Opposition players with long shot stats under 12 generally score amazing goals from as far out as 30-40 yards.

- AM's never track back.

- There is no SS position in the game.

- And yes, arsenal are a joke on the game.

-once your striker is in a goal drought, it doesn't matter if he's the modern Pele, Eusebio, Puskas, Best all in one, cos he's not getting out of it

Corrected. Every time I notice an opposition player has a goal drought before we play, he almost always ends it. Quite often he'll score two as well...

yes i have seen all of the above mentioned and it is anoying, i think it is down to tactics or should i say wrong tactics, when i make changes in these situations and they work i see the benifits, the hardest part in the first place is knowing what to change to..

example. your playing at home using your attacking wide 4-4-2 but the opponents who sit bottom of the table with no wins in 10 also playing a 4-4-2 have more of the ball in the midfeild area yet you seem to be having more shots on goal etc, firstly. why do you think they have more possesion in that area and what do you think you can do to amend the situation?

with reguards to wingers crossing i can fix that by decreasing there mentality, i think a high attacking mentality makes them play liek headless chickens with tunnel vision of trying to get that cross in.. try lowering there mentality to normal and i can assure you they will suceed in more crosses.

-you will ALWAYS get players injured after making all three substitutes. the game's way of punishing you for being stupid enough to make 3 substitutes.

One that irritates the hell out of me... Doesn't matter what team you are, you could be arsenal and the team you are against could be some Blue Square team, all the match you have nothing but shot after shot and somehow every single shot is saved and then you see it at the bottom say "Can team FC weather the storm?". A soon as that comes up the ball somehow ends up at the other end and they score

Stupid press comments about you should be expecting to beat x easily, that totally ignores the fact that you had four players carried off and two with heavy knocks.