[iPhone/PSP] Is Football Manager 2011 too easy ?

I started with Nottingham Forest.

Season 1 - I was Premoted and won the FA Cup.

Season 2 - I won the Premiership.

Players Bought - £7.75m.

Players Sold - £7.75m.

Its took Manchester City ( < --- scum ) several years and £300m to crack the Champions League places nevermind mount a successful title challenge.

I was going to put screen shots of the relevant information but then I remembered I had no idea how.

I certainly think going from a Championship club to being Premier League champions in 2 seasons is totally unrealistic.

I'm not one of the bottle.

I think I'm a special one.

If you know what to do, who to sign and what tactics & formations to use it is easy

Marc, you will be pleased to know I have taken Brighton to the Premier League after back-to-back promotions, placing 6th in my first EPL season and signing a out-of-favour Carlos Tevez from Man City!

But overall, it just comes with experience; I've been playing FM since I was about 13, and I have always had a real-life sound tactical understanding of football. It's also the fact like Marc has mentioned - we also know who the best players are and will be. I recently started a game with FC Bayern Munchen with fake player names, and it's much more of a challenge. I really recommend anyone finding it a bit too 'easy' to try it too.

After 2 seasons I am back in the prem with SWFC, and yes its with all the best young players and regans. But just signed Samuel Eto'o on a free on £30K a week, that is simply unrealistic. I think the club reputation logic needs to be reviewed in future games. In the real world a player of that reputation at just 31, after scoring 20 in 30 for Inter, would not join a club just after being promoted to the Prem. Also there are far too many players available on free transfers/Bosmans, so this should also be tweaked.

The more you play any management game the 'easier' its going to feel because you're able to 'spot' hidden gems instantly because you remember them from prior games, you'll also have more knowledge of what suits your team tactically and suchlike.

This is somewhat to be expected tbh, although I am surprised you managed to win the Premiership your first time up - congrats.

Have you tried the 'fake players' option? - this might increase your challenge as it'd remove the ability to spot the hidden gems from the game ...

(other things I tend to do personally with playing is to restrict myself only to players who I've played against or my scouts recommend - as a house rule that tends to make things a fair bit more challenging imho)

I'm very sorry to say this, but this is a very lame excuse.

To expect such a thing from FM is dealing with it like any other PC game that exists: once you get more experience from the game, you will be able to win it.

But FM is a game that tries to emulate reality. If you're a very, very good and experienced player in FM, then what it should happen if you started in a 2-tier division would be you getting promotion and, after some nice couple of seasons in the 1-tier (getting in the half top table, even get in europe standings, but by no means winning it...) you should get some proposals to be hired to some big club that could reach the first place.

What you say about hidden gems is clearly not a good argument. See: if you know them because you played older versions and you know them, then, if this is a good emulation game, the player who is a gem should be a real gem in real life (after all, if he maintains himself as a gem in FM for several versions... he should be a good player in reality). So, other managers should be able to spot them, and not only you.

And you talk about hidden gems as a way to get you in the road of success, but when I see so many people that win the Champions League with average teams because they bought guys like Dzeko or Neymar, it is hardly the case of getting "hidden gems", now is it?

I just started a save game with Caen, hoping to get a hard challenge there; but, in the moment I opened the player search and saw the players that were interested in signing for Caen, it was a shock for me to see that so many players with big reputations were there.

So, to sum it up: yes, it tends to be a very easy game. But the main problem is not so much as being an easy game as it is not realistic in that departement. So, the real problem is that its easiness is a result of being unrealistic. And I'm afraid people on SI know this, but prefer to maintain it like this because the majority of the players like to win things, and should get frustrated if the game was a bit harder.

So, my point is this: I'm not that angry with the fact that the game can turn out to be very easy, because I kind of get used to it; what I really don't like is to see such an accomodation with that fact from behalf of SI responsibles. And to try to find ways to explain why the game is so easy is not the best way to improve the game.

Sorry, but that's my opinion from a long time.

(By the way, to play with fake players may help to get things harder, but if you understood me correctly, you'll see that it only reinforces my argument: it's not a question of hardness, it's a question of simulating well or doing it badly)

I am really much more satisfied with this answer. Still, and although it is clear that you understand that my problem is not with the game being easy or hard, I tend to find you too much concentrated in the easiness bit, and not with the reality emulation. You talk about trying to please to kinds of "audience", but that is hardly the case if we are talking about making the game more close to reality (I don't think people will have complain of having this too "real"...). I think the major mistake you're making is to separate "realness" and "fun". I really don't see how a person that buys a simulation manager game would want it to be less realistic in some aspects. It's the same (fake) separation that people tend to make between "effective" and "good" football. If you say that you are interested in that the game is fun to play, besides coming close to reality, than one might wonder if the games shouldn't all end up with high scores and that should be no 0-0. After all, that's what people tend to interpret as "fun football".

But, to cut the things down to what I want to say, let me tell you this. I've been seeing some people suggesting that the game should have different levels of difficulty, so that it could be more tough. This is a symptom of someone who is dealing with a game as a mere game, and is only concerned with getting good challenges, like finishing a platform game or reaching a highscore. That is not my case. I don't want to fight for non-relegation with Chelsea as much as I don't want to be racing for 1-tier titles with an amateur team. And I think that this all would be solved by improving AI. Since I understand nothing about programming, I really don't know if this is hard (I am assuming it is very hard...). Let me get this clear: I am completely ok with the faults in AI managing teams. The only thing I'd like would be to see that the path of SI staff would be taking measures to increase AI's approach in building a squad and in building tactical dynamism, so that they could answer to our own shifts during the match, or during the season.

As for the attention on the details, that’s really what bugs me the most. You say that I am one of the minority (15%) that, because of paying attention to little details. But let me tell you this: the main reason I get upset with the easiness is that I find that it makes almost no difference to be careful or just to run your game in full speed, neglecting the day-by-day issues. I see people that don’t pay that much of attention, and still find a way to achieve success.

So, my request would be (i) to “compensate” those who pay that attention t details and (ii) to make it harder for making FM one of those games where you start winning everything because you just “caught the hand of it”, I mean, just because you’ve found the logic to win. In FM, this “logic” I’m talking about is stuff like having a win-it-all tactics… I know that this is virtual impossible to achieve, but I hope that it is possible to get even closer.

As for your direct questions:

When I was talking about buying the likes of Neymar or Dzeko, I was talking about buying them in the first transfer window.

And, about Caen, the unrealistic bunch of star players comprises (i) almost every hot player from Brazil (Neymar, Paulo Henrique Ganso…) who are young, yes, but clearly wouldn’t want to get loaned to Caen, by no means, and clearly aren’t unsettled in their own clubs; (ii) argentinean guys like Battaglia (first-teamer for Boca) and Buonanotte (first-teamer for River); (iii) and, to end up this summary, the last one which I consider the worst: players from higher French teams, who not only wouldn’t trade their clubs for Caen, but also have pretty nice market from bigger teams. I’m talking about hot youngsters like M’Bengué or Capoue from Toulouse, or Gameiro from Lorient (scouted them to see their level of interest, and it is said in their report that they would be Extremely interested in joining Caen). Oh, and by the way, I set my reputation as Semi-professional player…

I'm not trying to excuse any shortcomings of the game at present - its not perfect, but that is what I'm striving towards despite the fact I fully realise I'll never truly reach that goal (and I do also stand by what I indicated before if every Premiership manager today could jump back 10 years and 'know' the player who Gareth Bale would become they'd have signed him when he was unknown and cheap, by replaying the game you effectively have that advantage and it will always give humans an edge in the long run when playing the game imho).

you've got a pretty solid argument here, and I admit I agree with the impossibility of reaching there. But, when I've mentioned it I was talking about players that you know from other editions (from FM09 or 10, for instances). And you are talking about someone who makes like ten seasons in a saved game, then start a new one and know who to buy. Ok, your scenario is kind of impossible to deal with, but I find no big problems with it, because, knowing these, people should either make efforts to be a good player right on their first long attempt or to simply do not copycat their seasons, and try to explore new players in the second time around.

As for my scenario, it is a bit more concerning. Lets take an example. Everyone talks about Verratti. And everyone knows he is a real gem to come. And it is been known from previous versions of the game. So, at this point, if he continues as one of the best future players in the game, it shouldn't be so easy to hire him as it is, as people should be informed of his value (know that he is consecutively evaluated as this)

I am not playing on the iPhone its the PSP version.

Who ever changed the title of the thread needs to change it back.

oh boy, now I'm the one to apologise, here. Yes, of course I've been talking about PC game. What happened was probably I just saw the topic related to the game being easy, just read the posts and made that comment... all without realizing I was in a handheld thread.

Really sorry.

I do wonder whether this game is a tad too easy. On i-phone version I just started a game as Hibs - signed only one new player - Marcel Seip from Plymouth for £100k - and won the SPL in my first season, and also beat Man City twice in the Europa League.

Or maybe its just down to my brilliant tactics - diamond formation/attacking mentality?!!

I completely agree with lds when he says that this newer version of FM is too easy. I was enjoying FM2011 very much when I realised that my excelent results were nothing but normal. I started in Portugal with Vitoria de Guimaraes and in my 3rd season I already had Xavi and Balotelli (free transfer). Every year I went to see the free players in the market and I could sign with almost all the stars available. This makes winning the Champions League very easy. Almost all my mates won the Champions in the first 5 years in Vitoria. Going to other countrys like Italy, Spain ou England makes it even easier because in that countrys there are a lot of money and it is very easy to buy players with a good reputation that in reality were never going to sign with that clubs (at least with their current reputation).

The thing that I dislike much is that there are no good portuguese young players. In the UEFA competitions it is necessary to register 8 players who were formed in Portugal and the only good players are from Sporting, Benfica and Porto (just because they are the best clubs, it doesn't mean that in other clubs there aren't decent players!). Almost every player from Serie B, Liga Adelante and Championship are way better than any player from the 2nd division in Portugal and the majority of the players that are not from the "3 Grandes" in Portuguese League .

Joao Reis (Portuguese U-19) was one of the 23 biggest promises by FIFA and in FM he has 1 or 2 atributes > 10. Bebe (who signed with Vitoria de Guimaraes and Man Utd) before going to England was a really really poor player. Did he become good just because he's in a diferent club now? Couldn't he be a promising player just because he played in Portugal? (He alreay had PSV and other clubs observing him). I know it's extremly hard to know wich players are going to be good or not but I see many players in other countrys that could make the "jump" to a 1st league (i think it's wonderful when you can go shopping in lower divisions and get succeeded) but Portuguese players are too underrated. Portugal forms top players every year and we export a lot of them, but they only become good in FM when they leave our country. I gave those 2 examples and it's perfectly fine that these players are not outstanding in FM but I can't find any player who ir...

With this text I'm not trying to criticize your work in a bad way, I'm just expressing the things that I think that need to be improved.

Keep up the good work!