Stupidities of this game

I love it. I really do. Without the best ever made so far.

I'm into my fourth year with Juventus. I have a hell of a team....but...

.......that my team doesn't "do well" against teams of low reputation is ridiculous. I've had an easier time defeating Inter, Milan, Roma, Man U, Liverpool (for some reason my team kills this one each time so far), Barcelona and Real Madrid, than trying to beat teams like Atalanta.....Empoli, and other crappy foreign teams.

It's just getting ridiculous. I understand that it is true that a lot of times great teams don't playing nearly as well as they should against lower end teams, but this game has wayyyyyyyyyyy too much of it. Once again i tied Atalanta 0-0. Before that i ridiculously lost to Ederlecht and my team didn't play that poorly, but apparently this game made Austin Ejide a friggin star.

So, the next patch, please...............please oh please.....fix that. It's too exaggerated. I've won the Champions, Serie A three in a row, but it's really an annoying factor in the game.

Another stupidity..... my team is good at breaking out on the counter attack and at times i have either my striker one on one with the opposition goalkeeper, and instead of going towards the box and in, he ends up kicking it from 25 years out and well off the mark. Even with my striker and winger....which actually happened twice against Ederlecht, and here is what happened:

First: striker kicked from far out and it wasn't even close.

Second: winger has the ball, one opposition defender on him, the striker is well open on the opposite side, Ejide near the post facing the winger, winger passes on the opposite side, striker kicks but miraculously Austin becomes Mr. Elastic and manages to get from one post to the next to make a save. And no, the shot was not placed towards the middle.

Another stupidity....... the yellow cards. Really, i tried to get tackles to go easy, but the yellow cards are printed out as much as the US is printing out its own money. And of course i cannot make my players go too easy on the opposition or else it's a potential, and probable, loss. Good thing i have a strong team with depth:

Rene Adler

Avramov

Bocchetti

Criscito

Sepe (decent youngster)

Vanden Borre

Chiellini

Ariaudo (decent youngster)

De Silvestri

De Ceglie

Palombo

Marchisio

Bolzoni

Adu

Pepe

Yago

Giovinco

Kaka

Verratti (love this guy)

Giuseppe Rossi

Neymar

Pazzini

Altidore

Without such depth, i'd be fired.

Anyway, just wanted to throw my thoughts out there for my frustrations.

players have what is called hidden attributes which cannot be seen. they effect how your players play and against what teams. one of the hidden attributes is consistensy, so a player with a high consistensy rating will player at his best more often. another of the hidden attributes is important matches, which indicates how much a player enjoys playing against big teams and important games.it sounds as if you have alot of these players because you always beat the big teams.

there is a program called geniescout that allows you to see the players hidden attributes but i personally would not use it as it's like cheating. but go to your players report screen and read each member of staff's report on the player. if the member of staff has been working with the player for a while then in the strengths and weaknesses boxes there may be comments like ' defoe is a player who enjoys big matches' or 'we believe defoe to be a fairly consistant player'.

to get a better idea of hidden attributes read:

FM10: How Your Players Work. (Warning: Hidden Details Inside) by sfraser

Hey hockey I know that playing poorly against weaker sides can be frustrating but it something I feel that you can deal with. You said you've won many honors in the last few seasons....this amount of success seems to have gotten your players over confident. When you have such a good time against the top teams in the world, your players are going to be at least somewhat complacent no matter how professional they are. Many times weaker teams will feel they have something to prove and will play with a chip on their shoulder. This is why its become so hard to go undefeated because as you win more, complacence becomes more of an issue.

And don't knock ejide!

I don't mean to be critical of you but maybe you want to try and change your approach to talking to your players when facing weaker sides. This is something that I have yet to figure out completely and do struggle to keep my players motivated against some weaker teams.

I always bad mouth my players to the press if we're in the middle of a good patch, which helps. Also, you have to be more aggressive against the weaker teams.

Does your ass man set opposition instructions for you? If so, he'll put every one on psycho-Ninja tackling which over-rides all your sensible settings.

see: liverpool .... unstoppable in europe against the worlds elite... and then losing against bolton, fulham and the likes..

motivation is a huge thing irl and in game..

You have to play differently against the bottom sides, they won't attack you like other big sides, meaning you won't get space in behind them etc.

Different tactics often win me games against sides who otherwise i will draw against. I often go for shouts; control and work ball into box + high defensive line + wing backs to stretch the opposition and i move say a striker into attacking mid to exploit the space between defense and midfield in a 4-4-2. For different formations i do different things, doesn't always work, but the results are better overall!

Just my opinion of course

If you're doing badly in the first half, or even playing well but not scoring, just tweak your tactics a little. What works against Inter may not work as well against Empoli. Play around with tempo and width. Sometimes, something as simple as that will get you the goal.

Well in essence that's 3 issues you name. This is what I think about them.

1) Sorry, but it's your tactics. Your team does well against offensive opposition but comparably badly against defensive opposition. Naturally small teams wil park the bus when playing against big Juventus. This is what your team (i.e. yout tactic) is struggling with. So while your tactic works great against teams which don't do that, you'll have to make some changes when playing against smaller teams, for instance playing a slower tempo, more width and higher d-line. The game is certainly not programmed in a way which gives any advantage to the smaller teams.

2) Completely agree. The AI is in some cases way off. I'm sure this will be addressed as it is every time.

3) I don't share that problem. I have some players who will get booked in nearly every game, but I know it's not the tactical settings, but their aggression rate and also some of their hidden attributed like sportsmanship may be responsible. If you feel it always happens to you, then you probably have quite a bunch of dirty players. The problem will go if you buy a few less dirty ones.

Its a broken part of the game, no matter how much people try to justify it.

SI try to make the game a challenge but in reality, teams like Chelsea etc will beat a shoddy team like Wigan 8-0.

In FM, Wigan will make it to Europe and get a 0-0 vs a human player.

Sometimes skill will over-come a side with financial problems and lack of talent regardless of motivation, tactics or team talks....in FM that is not the case.

Its a broken part of the game, no matter how much people try to justify it.

SI try to make the game a challenge but in reality, teams like Chelsea etc will beat a shoddy team like Wigan 8-0.

In FM, Wigan will make it to Europe and get a 0-0 vs a human player.

Sometimes skill will over-come a side with financial problems and lack of talent regardless of motivation, tactics or team talks....in FM that is not the case.

Just because posters such as yourself & the OP can't come to terms with the game does not make it broken

Rather than shouting bug every five minutes you should take the time to try to understand both FM & the RL game.

Its a broken part of the game, no matter how much people try to justify it.

SI try to make the game a challenge but in reality, teams like Chelsea etc will beat a shoddy team like Wigan 8-0.

In FM, Wigan will make it to Europe and get a 0-0 vs a human player.

Sometimes skill will over-come a side with financial problems and lack of talent regardless of motivation, tactics or team talks....in FM that is not the case.

Part of FM's fascination is that it's very realistic, especially in terms of tactics.

That has the downside that there is no 'one fits all' tactic anymore. Juventus irl play a lot differently against Empoli than they do against Milan. So must we. But it seems like you prefer to simply ignore this when you make unfounded accusations like this.

One may complain about it and believe that FM as a sim is going the wrong way because it becomes too much effort to get things right every time. But in order to embark on this debate, you would have to provide at least a bit of an argument instead of saying FM is wrong. It certainly requires a bit of understanding which your post doesn't emanate.

You have to play differently against the bottom sides, they won't attack you like other big sides, meaning you won't get space in behind them etc.

Different tactics often win me games against sides who otherwise i will draw against. I often go for shouts; control and work ball into box + high defensive line + wing backs to stretch the opposition and i move say a striker into attacking mid to exploit the space between defense and midfield in a 4-4-2. For different formations i do different things, doesn't always work, but the results are better overall!

Just my opinion of course

i am not sure i agree with this.

playing RM and even after winning almost everything in 5 seasons, i am facing many small teams which won't be intimidated and go to attack from the get-go.

it has been more of an issue this current season for me than in the previous ones (curiously enough) but i understand some of the frustration of the OP.

in almost all matches against inferior teams, my players' earliest grades are about 6.7 throughout, whereas the opposition starts with 7.0 in all players.

they play attacking / fast-tempo football with incredible ball control, pressing and tackling - forcing me on the defensive and receiving advice from my assman such as "we are missing way to many easy passes" and so on. many times i find myself patiently waiting for a counter attack and score a goal relying on my player's individual talents so that i may start setting the rythm of the game; instead of my "lousy" adversary.

if they score first, however, it becomes a nightmare for me. because countering their attacking tactic with an attacking tactic usually results in even more ball control to them (even though they are supposedly an inferior team).

now i don't necessarily "struggle" to get the results as i say i still win the liga and what not, but it still strikes me as odd sometimes.

Its a broken part of the game, no matter how much people try to justify it.

SI try to make the game a challenge but in reality, teams like Chelsea etc will beat a shoddy team like Wigan 8-0.

In FM, Wigan will make it to Europe and get a 0-0 vs a human player.

I use a completely different set of tactics against weaker teams, as you might expect, and I regularly beat teams like Wigan, Stoke, Sunderland, Bolton by 5 or 6 goals. (I also occasionally struggle to win 1-0, which happens to major teams IRL too).

I know this is not what you want to hear, but.... The fact that some people experience the problem you describe while others do not really does suggest that it is about tactics rather than the match engine.

Hey hockey I know that playing poorly against weaker sides can be frustrating but it something I feel that you can deal with. You said you've won many honors in the last few seasons....this amount of success seems to have gotten your players over confident. When you have such a good time against the top teams in the world, your players are going to be at least somewhat complacent no matter how professional they are. Many times weaker teams will feel they have something to prove and will play with a chip on their shoulder. This is why its become so hard to go undefeated because as you win more, complacence becomes more of an issue.

And don't knock ejide!

I don't mean to be critical of you but maybe you want to try and change your approach to talking to your players when facing weaker sides. This is something that I have yet to figure out completely and do struggle to keep my players motivated against some weaker teams.

Good post.

I go by the mantra that you have to motivate your players for the "easy" matches more so than the tough ones, because players can perceive them as being "easy" and under-perform.

For tough matches I tend towards trying to calm players down, compose them, get them into a frame of mind where on-pitch difficulties wont shatter their confidence.

There does seem to be a fine line between a squad that goes out Motivated for big games and becomes complacent in smaller matches, versus a squad that goes out Motivated for the smaller matches and becomes Nervous in the big games. Walking that fine line is one of the major challenges in FM.

SI try to make the game a challenge but in reality, teams like Chelsea etc will beat a shoddy team like Wigan 8-0.

In the same season as the 8-0

http://www.chelseafc.com/matchreport/20090926/wigan-3-chelsea-1_2249014_47595

I suppose if you'd won 8-0 at home and lost 3-1 away, that would be a bug too?

I think FM does go a little too far with the complacency at times, but it really isn't off by much imo.

Could the problem be related to team talks and motivation?

Try giving an "I expect a win" team talk, or telling a few players they're doing well or need to improve before the match.

I need help quick, i am stuck on 1st july 2011 and my screen goes to crash dumps and then my game goes off, i need help urgently

you on patch 3?