FMRTE - good or bad thing?

Well I just downloaded this yesterday for the first time ever, and I have to say I wish I hadn’t! It’s changed my entire perspective on FM really (I know it’s an unofficial product and it has it’s uses but…. It’s just one big cheating machine if we’re honest.)

I found it on a website that said it had over 43,000 downloads – so it’s a popular cheating machine! One plus I found was that I could change my birthday to my actual one (1985 – the game automatically sets it to 1984) but other than that it’s literally good for nothing.

So with the click of a button you can “Inspire Team” and give everybody Superb morale? With the click of a button you can turn any player into a Wonderkid, or eradicate all squad injuries? (I’m assuming that’s what “Heal Team” does – I daren’t click it because having clicked “Inspire Team” I was gutted to see everybody’s morale jump to Superb as it meant I had just inadvertently CHEATED for the first time on my save-game!)

Why on earth would anyone ever want to do that?!! That’s not realism! Why have these 43,000 FMRTE users spent money on the game – just to use some online program to make everything p*** easy?

I would like to think most people use it just for correcting bugs (aka TonySoprano yesterday with his being inexplicably sacked from Derby) or to change their birthday if the game thinks they’re too young – but the truth is I won’t be able to see any of the FM success stories in the same light anymore because there will always be doubt in my mind that people have cheated – now that I’ve seen how easy it is to do. I know there’s more genuine FM players than cheaters… (I hope anyway) and I know if people want to cheat than they’re welcome to… it’s they’re money, it’s their game, blah blah blah… but in hindsight I really wish I hadn’t downloaded FMRTE and was still oblivious to the ease of cheating. Pfft!

Rant over

Don't use it if you think it's bad.

It's a handy tool - therefore a good thing.

I use it to iron out a regular bug within my game (obscure teams' reputation soaring to Championship levels).

PS. I wouldn't consider anything "cheating". It's a one-player game. Like you say, people can play the game however they like, having spent £30 on it.

Most users will probably find FMRTE useful. One thing I use it for is to give a slight bump to players who have had a good season but they have been rated a lot lower (i.e. Bale). Almost all the slight (A 5-10 increase of PA in most cases) changes I make are to other teams.

There is also the International Friendly call up bug. The only way to fix that is with FMRTE.

I have used it to look "under the hood" specifically how my own reputation was developing.

For me, personally, myself, even that was too much (for me) and it is, for me, a bad thing.

I have no problem with people using it to turn Haverhill Rovers into Barcelona, but, please, don't come bragging here.

It's useful for correcting bugs in the game. Sometimes I use it to experiment. For example, I've started a game, got bored of it, but then decided to see what would happen if I made all of one years youth intake at Liverpool all have world class PA. Would they reach it? Will they all stay at the club? Will Liverpool be a success? I holidayed and found out.

The game went kaput, but a few of them reached it, one was world player of the year, most stayed thought they sold off their best defenders, and they only won the league once in about 10 season. I find things like this interesting.

It's a good thing if it sells more copies of FM and keeps people playing it who would otherwise give up;)

Personally I'm a LLaMa so I've no idea of it's efficacy.

LLaMa

Your capitalisation doesn't fool me

At the moment I only use it to fix the international withdrawl bug.

Every time there is a new game/patch I do use it with a save game to test my training schedules. Essentially I will set up a team with a range of youngsters & older players and I use FMRTE to check what their CA is at the end of each season so I can see how my training schedule is working.

It is a useful tool, but it comes with the penalty that using it is far more likely to see your game become unstable and crash.

Personally, if I can avoid using it I will. I practically never use it on my own team, only occasionally in some games to try to boost my local sides reputation and bank balance so that they might get into the football league.

I haven't used it at all on FM11, and only sporadically on FM10.

Quite honestly, and brutally...

who cares?!

Some people use the offical pre-game editor to give their local club 500M and Top Reputation so they can buy Star Players and breeze through every competition, some others put themselves into the game as the Second Coming of Messi, etc...

It's a GAME, so in all fairness I find rather childish having to brag about whatever success you achieved, with or without cheating, unless it's bringing someting useful to the table...

Countless "I won CL with Aldershot" topics are little more than "look at me! How awesome am I?!" attention pleas... Then again, if in such topic you can share some interesting findings that can help the whole community, it's a different thing and it'll be an interesting read.

But that's absolutely the only reason to care about people not "cheating"...

And speaking of "legit success", we could argue all the LLM stories are based on a very "gameish" premise... in real life there's NO WAY you could lead Bumfluff FC from Isthmian to Champions League in 15 seasons, probably not even in a lifetime and with Abramovich's bottomless pit of money...

But that doesn't mean LLMs can enjoy their nice "from rags to riches" career, because it's a game and a game should be fun.

So meh... 40k+ people downloaded FMRTE... maybe they all used it to give themselves some unfair advantage, maybe not... But if it's the way they have fun with FM, so be it.

Sure, if overdone it kills the fun/challenge, but in small doses it's helpful and is the only way to counter some absurd crap going on in the game.

I use it to:

* correct overrated players I missed in the original "realism check"

* adjust blatantly underrated players (happens rarely than you think)

* assign more suitable role to oddly-shaped newgens

* decrease reputation AND ability to multi-sacked managers or to unknown guys who got unexplicably high skills/rep

Basically FMRTE is a very useful tool to correct and balance things in-game... then yeah, you can use it to cheat like hell, but if used with moderation and fairness it's not cheating.

Let's just say with a better "straight out of the box" FM, we wouldn't need to resort to third-party software to iron some issue out

I used it to boost Las Palmas At. (the B team) reputation in order for them to become promoted to Second Division B so that they get to play real matches (and I can add a manager to get a real coach setup and a real assistant, then either holiday or retire).

They haven't succeeded yet, two seasons afterwards, so I think I may have to resort to FMRTE'ing them as promoted instead of another club. I don't know how to do it, though.

How much cheating is it to set a player's Position level to Natural after 2 years of position training from Accomplished to no avail? Is that really realistic?

i use it quite a lot for changing things i dont agree with, its prob one of the reasons i dont care so much about bugs, i can find ways to sort a lot of them. I dont really care about PA or CA as a number and even looking at them sometimes is pointless, not every player with a high PA will be a good player. I dont think i have used the inspire or heal team things, again they seem very pointless. It is fun to bump players conditioning up and see them hit shots from the half way line, but only for a bit of banter.

It can be used for cheating, or for modelling your own footballing world, see it what ever way you want really.

How much cheating is it to set a player's Position level to Natural after 2 years of position training from Accomplished to no avail? Is that really realistic?

Alan Smith has been trying to play centre mid for years, and he still hasn't got the hang of it. Totally realistic.

So it seems the general consensus is that it’s a good thing. Which I’d probably agree with having read the arguments for and against it. It is useful for ironing out the bugs, it is useful for altering stats and attributes that you perhaps disagree with, and it’s useful for cheating, if cheating is your thing.

Whilst I do agree it’s good in certain areas as an editing tool, I think having the Heal/Inspire Team buttons and the Make Wonderkid button are 100% cheats – pure & simple, which render it not just an Editing Tool but a Cheating Tool. Which is fair enough as we’ve established, if cheating is your thing. (But why not then just add a “Win Everything” button which automatically skips to the end of the season with you having won every competition?) Oops, I said that last bit through gritted teeth… I repeat, I do understand if cheating is your thing. Ahem.

But seriously, I don’t want to bash people for cheating, and I don’t feel compelled to bang on & on about how I’m not a cheater and I play the game “properly” because there is no “properly” – it’s all about the game player and what they enjoy, as it’s a game.

I was just a bit taken aback because I’ve heard people talk about FMRTE before and never known what it was – I just didn’t know there was a Cheating Tool out there for FM - just call me naïve

It's a useful tool and how much you use it depends entirely upon your perogative. Some people use it just to fix bugs, some people use it to scout, some people go all the way and edit the **** out of everything they possibly can. Either way, it's their choice and their perception of "fun". Personally I use it mostly to check reputation of my team and things like expansion capacity of my stadium and so forth. I find it nicer when I can see a specific number for reputation rather than "national" or "continental". I admit I also use it to scout which to some'd make my "achievements" in game completely invalid, but I try to be realistic about it, if my team can't scout a region, I dont take players from that region. Either way, I find it speeds up my player searches which is a big boon to me because I'd rather complete a season in say 12 hours rather than 24 hours.

The game takes long enough by itself, being able to simply search sorting by ca/pa is a big boon to me, and I'm not ashamed to admit it either . Is it cheating? yes, but I don't care, I do it in a fairly realistic way, and hire scouts even if I'm not using them very much. I don't edit players, I don't cheat away injuries/bans. All of the players I find are ones I find later in the game via my scouts if I don't sign them they often come up in a report, but this ways quicker, and it makes the game simpler for me if I have two figures I can quickly and instantly compare to give an estimate of how good a player might be.

The first time I played football manager (SI CM era, and some other games) games, there was no attribute masking, no scouts, you could search anywhere and everywhere without a problem and while that in itself isn't realistic, I miss the simplicity, so I use a tool to make this game more like older games in a sense. I haven't always done so, on FM2010 I didn't, early Fm2011 I didn't, I just found my enthusiasm for the game lacking, and this utility helped restore it by letting me progress through the seasons faster - as in at the end of the day, I'm more interested in building a squad and watching it grow and win things than anything else.

can you cheat at a one player game where the only thing to beat is your own record?

People like messing around with the game, like i say if you set players conditioning too high they become god like, its good fun for a half an hour. Play FM anyway you want, it really doesnt matter.

Like milnerpoint says, it's your game and noone elses, if you want to cheat in a single player game, you can. noone should have any problem with you doing what you want to do :/

Its essential if you want a challenge in long term saves, since the AI is useless at team building you can use fmrte to improve rival clubs at the start of each new season. Keeps the game interesting.

Personally I can't see the point of using it to cheat or make your own team better since the game is (or at least becomes) ridiculously easy already.

Like milnerpoint says, it's your game and noone elses, if you want to cheat in a single player game, you can. noone should have any problem with you doing what you want to do :/

I know - thanks for echoing almost everybody else above - but I was just interested in the general opinion and I think the feedback has been pretty helpful. I'm not on a high horse or anything about people cheating, as you can tell from the thread title I was unsure either way – and the comments here have swayed me to believe it's overall a good tool to have.

Of course you can play it how you want to - but if some people cheat, and some people don't, there will naturally be a debate - strike that- banter, about cheating.

Using your logic, why come on here to talk about any aspect of the game? Like you say, it’s a single-player game so why come on to discuss the tactics YOU use in YOUR game, or how well YOU’VE done in YOUR game. Who cares? Who needs this forum at all?

It’s a place to discuss. That’s all.

why the aggression? He never said you shouldnt discuss it or anything, he just gave his opinion. You do sound like your on your high horse about this, when infact you shouldnt really care.

I used it one of my FM saves. I changed some crappy lower league players PA to 200 and his age to 15 to see how he would develop and if any of the big clubs would come get him. Now I have a Mac though, FMRTE doesn't work so I dont even have the urge to use it.

So it seems the general consensus is that it’s a good thing. Which I’d probably agree with having read the arguments for and against it. It is useful for ironing out the bugs, it is useful for altering stats and attributes that you perhaps disagree with, and it’s useful for cheating, if cheating is your thing.

Whilst I do agree it’s good in certain areas as an editing tool, I think having the Heal/Inspire Team buttons and the Make Wonderkid button are 100% cheats – pure & simple, which render it not just an Editing Tool but a Cheating Tool. Which is fair enough as we’ve established, if cheating is your thing. (But why not then just add a “Win Everything” button which automatically skips to the end of the season with you having won every competition?) Oops, I said that last bit through gritted teeth… I repeat, I do understand if cheating is your thing. Ahem.

But seriously, I don’t want to bash people for cheating, and I don’t feel compelled to bang on & on about how I’m not a cheater and I play the game “properly” because there is no “properly” – it’s all about the game player and what they enjoy, as it’s a game.

I was just a bit taken aback because I’ve heard people talk about FMRTE before and never known what it was – I just didn’t know there was a Cheating Tool out there for FM - just call me naïve

If there was a FMRTE for posts I would imagine that it would show this post and this thread to be 100% BS. The poster doesnt appear to have the courage to admit his agenda. He apparently also is unaware of the ingame editor. He also seems to believe that correcting mistakes in the DB is cheating. This issue is not that black and white.

never used it never will, yes i agree its a complete cheat program. Play the game for real or not at all is what i say. Ignore all those i won champions league with XXX blue square team within 5 years as well, as, yes, you guessed it. They use that program and claim it to be skill.

So are you trying to say that most people who have won the champs league with a blue square prem team have "cheated" to do so?

never used it never will, yes i agree its a complete cheat program. Play the game for real or not at all is what i say. Ignore all those i won champions league with XXX blue square team within 5 years as well, as, yes, you guessed it. They use that program and claim it to be skill.

Some might use it to allow Ryan Giggs to play in a Champs league final when the game would have him miss the match with a cold..or a cut...

Some might use it to allow Ryan Giggs to play in a Champs league final when the game would have him miss the match with a cold..or a cut...

Which is cheating.

If there was a FMRTE for posts I would imagine that it would show this post and this thread to be 100% BS. The poster doesnt appear to have the courage to admit his agenda. He apparently also is unaware of the ingame editor. He also seems to believe that correcting mistakes in the DB is cheating. This issue is not that black and white.

I agree, FMRTE is very useful for correcting mistakes in the DB. I think I mentioned that above... a few times actually. Cheating is fine too, if that's your game. Doesn't really matter.

I love a good heated debate but there really isn't one to be had here...

My only problem with it (never used it myself), is that people tend to report bugs after using FMRTE, which might or might not be caused by this external tool, which in end turns for more difficulty for SI to fix bugs, which ends up with less bugs being corrected, meaning a worse game for everybody in the long run.

I wouldn't mind if SI put a no FMRTE-"tainted" games allowed in any bug report for this reason, to be honest. Apart from that, to each his own.

The moment you download it is the moment the game is ruined. It completely takes out the realism your imagination used to create , and its near on impossible to just delete it. You always go back to it , always. Its the simulations game version of cocaine!

SI know which games have used FMRTE and which games have not if they are uploaded to the FTP, and if they have been edited using it they will not really look at them so it the long run it wont affect the bug finding in FM.

I know - thanks for echoing almost everybody else above - but I was just interested in the general opinion and I think the feedback has been pretty helpful. I'm not on a high horse or anything about people cheating, as you can tell from the thread title I was unsure either way – and the comments here have swayed me to believe it's overall a good tool to have.

Of course you can play it how you want to - but if some people cheat, and some people don't, there will naturally be a debate - strike that- banter, about cheating.

Using your logic, why come on here to talk about any aspect of the game? Like you say, it’s a single-player game so why come on to discuss the tactics YOU use in YOUR game, or how well YOU’VE done in YOUR game. Who cares? Who needs this forum at all?

It’s a place to discuss. That’s all.

Cheers for ridiculing my 2 cents, i fail to see why if other people say one thing i can't agree with them.

I don't approve of people who cheat massively then brag about achievements on these forums though.

Interesting that no one seems to have mentioned FMRTE allowing people to investigate some of the game mechanics in order to help others with the game. For example tutoring results can only be studied using something like FMRTE because they affect hidden attributes.

Like most tools, the tool itself is neither good nor evil. Editing a multiplayer game to give you an advantage over your human opponents is obviously not the same as investigating the effect of tutoring on hidden attributes.

The moment you download it is the moment the game is ruined. It completely takes out the realism your imagination used to create , and its near on impossible to just delete it. You always go back to it , always. Its the simulations game version of cocaine!

Yes, spot on - I think that's how I felt once I'd given all my players Superb morale - like my "clean" game was suddenly drugged up to the eyeballs on FM coke! Ha, thanks for explaining it how I couldn't and for using less aggression

For me, people pay their hard earned cash for the game, and if they enjoy playing it more using FMRTE then that's fine, as long as they don't try to brag about achievements without telling people they "cheated". But other than that, people can use the game how they like. If you don't like it, don't download and use it. Simple as.

Some might use it to allow Ryan Giggs to play in a Champs league final when the game would have him miss the match with a cold..or a cut...

Which is cheating.

Which is exhibit A in proof that this game does not try to mirror reality.

Yes, spot on - I think that's how I felt once I'd given all my players Superb morale - like my "clean" game was suddenly drugged up to the eyeballs on FM coke! Ha, thanks for explaining it how I couldn't and for using less aggression

Or how Didier Drogba missed the World Cup because of a broken arm...wait..he didnt...

Players do and have missed games with illness and cut feet. Those that play through the pain barrier are the exception to the rule and are rare cases.

SI know which games have used FMRTE and which games have not if they are uploaded to the FTP, and if they have been edited using it they will not really look at them so it the long run it wont affect the bug finding in FM.

Sorry , but that is nonsense.

Players do and have missed games with illness and cut feet. Those that play through the pain barrier are the exception to the rule and are rare cases.

Yeah...its rare that a player missed a match because of a cold. Especially a big match.

What is it that the LLM guys say? 'Spawn of Satan?'

I certainly don't approve of using it to cheat or to give yourself an unfair advantage at all. What's the point?

I guess I can see how it might have its uses when coming up with a solution for certain bugs in the game. I'm talking about real bugs and issues, for which FMRTE might have the solution.

Sorry , but that is nonsense.

Out of pure interest, can you tell if a game has been edited with FMRTE? (Other than if you load it up and see that the guy has a £1b budget or something )

Yeah...its rare that a player missed a match because of a cold. Especially a big match.

Middlesbrough v Blackburn, 1997. The team didn't play the game because of a flu epidemic.

Tarmo Kink this season missed much of the season with an unspecified virus.

Andrew Taylor and one of Lita and McDonald have missed at least one game this season with a cold. I don't doubt there are more, since I've only followed Middlesbrough this season.

Not as rare as you think. Having a player who can't breathe properly is something of a hindrance.

People do what they want with the game, what you might consider cheating could be fun for them, posting it as legit achievements is another thing however.

I use it sometimes, i have a save dedicated just to messing around with the blighter, seeing san marino trash brazil 10-0 is fun once in a while, never once had it corrupt a save either.

It all depends on how you look at it, it can be a useful tool, a cheating device, or just something to mess with the game and relieve some stress. All are perfectly valid when playing offline, it's like moaning when people use cheats in GTA. Each to his own, not approving something you disagree with when it has NO effect on you whatsoever just means you're someone who has trouble accepting that people can find fun in something you dont.

Sorry , but that is nonsense.

thats me pwnd then

Sorry i always thought that was the case, clearly i was wrong

I use it sometimes in my "Scientific Research" save. Since I can control variables, I'm able to identify the causes in a few cases I didn't know before. I learned a lot about motivation and reputation this way.

Fmrte is a godsend. I never use it to check out pa/ca(which means very little to me), but have used it to tailor the game to my preferences. For example, i will holiday through to near the end of season and change the league standings to reflect that of real life, then take over a certain team. Stuff like that. I have used it on injuries before too, when they start to get insane and i have no players. That is cheating, but i couldn't really care less. What are you going to do? It's a game.

That is cheating, but i couldn't really care less. What are you going to do? It's a game.

The FM police will track you down

For me, people pay their hard earned cash for the game, and if they enjoy playing it more using FMRTE then that's fine, as long as they don't try to brag about achievements without telling people they "cheated". But other than that, people can use the game how they like. If you don't like it, don't download and use it. Simple as.

Threads about any of the utilities always end up with arguments but the above statement sums it up perfectly.

FMRTE is good for fixing stuff in "non-serious" games, ie experiments, sign-ups, saves where you're just messing around with stuff for fun to see what happens, etc. I've learnt to restrain myself not to use editors for my "proper" career games though. It's far more rewarding and challenging this way. Only time I do it is pre-game in the official editor when I see stuff that is clearly detached from reality - sadly has been a recurrent problem with the portuguese league. This year I'm not doing that because my career save is a challenge for the CSE forum when one of the rules is no editors allowed (obviously).

But everyone's free to play the way they want to play the game, and I have no problem with that. Only thing I have a problem with is people bragging while hiding the fact they've used editors. It would be naive to think that never happens, as in any online community around a videogame there'll always be immature kids. I'm not sure why would anyone do that, but I've seen pretty glaring cases of it on other FM communities.

Just to clarify - myself, Crouchaldinho and some others don't see the point in using FMRTE to cheat - but we're not haters of cheaters, as far as I know... I mean I don't think I could have been much clearer when I say of course it's ok if cheaters want to cheat...... it's just not my cuppa.

So now that's clarified, how's about people stop shouting from the rooftops that "it's ok if they wanna cheat, they can it's their game so stop telling them they're wrong!"

Cause y'know... I'm not telling them it's wrong... k?

To be honest I'm just surprised everyone knows what FMRTE is, I must have been living in the dark ages or summat