Please make FM 2012 harder

I couldn't find anywhere else to post this, such as a suggestions forum but this game is too easy. Really, it gets boring to play league games after just two seasons.

I'm playing in Turkey and I've been dominating the league now for my first 3 seasons and the last two seasons I won the title by 19 and 18 points differences respectively. This makes the game really boring, other big clubs in your league should make good transfers and play good football too so the league wouldn't be so easy.

Same goes for the EPL too, it is really easy to dominate there too, even with a smaller club. So please make the game harder, thus more realistic so we can have more fun in long careers with big clubs too

There are plenty of challenges out there. Dafuge's challenge is the most popular if you are finding the game too easy. Take a non-league team and start managing them. Or start unemployed on a low reputation and take the first job offer you get. Really there are plenty of ways to stay amused.

Honestly, the game's only as difficult as you make it. You may want to try managing in lower leagues, or place restrictions on yourself (such as no player over 30, no paying any transfer fees, etc.)

Of course there are, but I want to have fun with the team I support and it's impossible because the game is too easy.

Also I don't like how the regen's generate, most of the regens I find, and believe me, I find most of them, have some very critical aspects lacking, such as stamina or strikers with every ability high but with a composure of 7.. I get the few realistic regens and the other teams can't get them. When I look at the starting player database and when I look at the regens and teams after 4-5 years in game, I see that the general quality is lowered dramatically. I hope they fix that in the new game.

PS: Where can I see find those challenges you've mentioned? I'm new to this place, sorry

I totally agree, but only if the game is made harder the right way. In other words, I don't want to see things like nerfed CCC's and random complacency meltdowns made worse than they are. I want to see the defensive AI realistically improved, and I think the skill gap between top teams and mid-table teams needs to be narrowed. As it stands, it's silly how players are rated like crap for playing for a team like Aston Villa but, if they get signed to Chelsea or Man Utd over the winter/summer, they suddenly get a massive boost in their ratings.

Try here:

http://community.sigames.com/forumdisplay.php/31-Challenges-Sign-Ups-amp-Experiments

Yeah you're right. And as for my own country, I'm really upset about the database guys who do the Turkey database. It's so unrealistic and subjective... A player, Arda Turan, relatively famous, anyways he is a left winger since his debut for Galatasaray. But after 4 years as a left winger, for a single season, he played as a center attacking midfielder and they made his AMC position natural and AML position accomplished. That's outrageous. I think sigames should find a better way or larger teams to get the database right.

And I agree about the right way to make it harder, the only problem for me is that other large teams in any league I play can't compete with me neither transferwise or performancewise

@looknohands: Thanks

There are plenty of challenges out there. Dafuge's challenge is the most popular if you are finding the game too easy. Take a non-league team and start managing them. Or start unemployed on a low reputation and take the first job offer you get. Really there are plenty of ways to stay amused.

But not everyone finds playing obscure teams fun. Some people want to play their favorite teams with their favorite players while having a realistic challenge.

Personally, if I wanted to manage a bunch of obscure amateurs, I'd just volunteer to coach U12 football in real life.

No problem.

You could also try looking into teams that historically have restrictions on the players they sign. Chivas, for example, will only field players that are elligible for the Mexican national team. Saprissa of Costa Rica did the same thing (same owner, I believe) although I think have a new owner.

Is there a thread where we can post what we want in FM 2012? Because I'm having an enormous nerd rage going on for SI

is easy to manage with big club .. try to accept doing it from scratch from lower leagues like real manager and then let us discuss.

I already did that too, but still, we don't see dominations in European football. We see them every 20 years or something. So we shouldn't be able to dominate our league for such a long time :/ An I like to play with clubs that I support and players that I know. What's wrong with that?

Why don't you try and create new tactics and new ways of winning? Sign new players

I don't understand how that can make the game harder. I always sign new players and if my tactics work, why would I change them? :/

Have you won the Champions League?

Not with Galatasaray not yet, but the league is so boring, I don't want to play

I think the point nileppezdel is trying to make is, that, given the game as is, it is still very easy to dominate if you are your favorite club and that club already has power.

Ofcourse it is harder only playing with nationals, playing only with U23s, playing only with your youth product, playing from a non-playable league up, but, what he is suggesting is that it needs to be harder to be Barca or United or someone dominate, or to dominate with anyone.

Maybe sliders that increase the continent and domestic competition? Or after 5 years of remaining in the top 2 of your domestic league your domestic league inherintly becomes harder. Same with your continent. We all don't want to play for some obscure team in an obscure nation and get them to the promise land.

I can see the point thats being made. But you are always going to make better transfers and have better tactics than the AI. Maybe a difficulty setting is the way to go, its been called for for many years maybe its time? Would take alot of developing though, eg how does it make it harder? Does it make other teams better or you worse? If it makes AI better, is it all AI? or just some?

Im one that plays as very low rep obscure teams but as said thats not for everybody, not everyone would do what i just did and turned down the Barca job in favour of a move to Central Espanol in the Uruguay 2nd division.

I have often said i dont like the idea of a difficulty setting but i think it might be time. Or just make the game harder overall? There will be a mass of people complaining the game is broken cause they cant click a supertactic and win but there are some now anyway and the game isnt even that hard so why not make it harder?

The game can be hard, if not damn near impossible (see youth products winning champions league challenges, especially in countries outside big 5). However, that's not for everyone. MOST people who have a favorite team who is already a top team in their continent usually end up playing them but usually end up finding another team and bring them up.

This game has everything someone could want to make it challenging and fun for them. However, it gets to a point where being the top team (especially inside the big5 uefa countries) does get boring. You can only dominate your league, CL, cups for so long before they get redundant and boring. Then you start doing side-challenges with them, like only playing your youth products, or only playing people from your country, limiting your transfer budget to 5M a year, whatever.

The only way I can see the game having a 'difficulty setting' would be one that can not be self-impossed, rather one that is automatically ran once you reach certain milestones. Like winning CL 3 times in a 5 year span, winning league and getting runners-up or 3rd place in a 5 year span, this would adjust the teams in your league (or CL country) or both, becoming better clubs producing better players and having better tactics, especially against you. Maybe the AI gets smarter and realizes how to beat your 4-1-3-2? But regardless of how the game gets 'harder' without self-impossed challenges, it is something that the game needs to do itself, rather then us deciding if we want it more difficult, or even less.

Not with Galatasaray not yet, but the league is so boring, I don't want to play

play another league then duh.. the league is not gonna be any different in fm12

play another league then duh.. the league is not gonna be any different in fm12

the discussion is about how to make the leagues harder, 'play another league' isnt what we are talking about, not everyone wants to play another league, they want to play as their favourite team

The game can be hard, if not damn near impossible (see youth products winning champions league challenges, especially in countries outside big 5). However, that's not for everyone. MOST people who have a favorite team who is already a top team in their continent usually end up playing them but usually end up finding another team and bring them up.

That's not only a favourite team issue, it's also an issue of placing restrictions on your doings no sane manager would abide to in real-life. Sure, it's fun as a challenge to only sign players 35 years and up, or to do it all with your own youth only, but not everyone is in the mood for extreme challenges and likes the game to be spicy even when not doing the extremes. It is often argued that the difficulty is picked via the club you choose. I.e.: At the top level it's meant to be easy, but in lower leagues it isn't. My feeling is that in lower leagues it is much easier to do well, as there are much more players available to you that can strenghten your squad at any given time. Find some decent youngsters, give them a contract that binds them to the club for a half a life time, and you're set.

Some of that is aided by unrealistic game mechanics of course, mainly to do with scouting and squad management in general. Coupled with boards so patient real managers can often only dream about it makes things more a test of patience for players themselves. In real-life no board would just watch as the freshly installed manager sacks the entire squad to replace it with a bunch of unproven newbies which the manager himself knows for almost certain that they develop into something, as they're being rated with "4 stars" and above by scouts, assistant managers and the rest of the staff alike. Equally no board would just sit around when the same manager puts their club's longterm stability in risk by paying every transfer on installments. And in real-life, depending on the board, a ho-hum season might get you the sack already, or when it is felt that progress comes at too slow a rate, or that the manager and its team don't get along with each other as well (upsetting and falling out with your squad is multiple times harder to do in FM than winning promotion spots). As soon as you and your squad have settled for each other, it is becoming easier anyways. I've never been outright sacked in FM ever even when I knew ZERO about the game and just started out playing the thing - and that rarely if ever had to do with smashing success, that is overachieving.

Still, it must be said that FM has the benefit of being a computer game, and you are the player rather than a man that has to fear about his real job. FM players rarely get emotional by doing something stupid in the press conference because FM as a game can't simulate an environment in which eventually they'll be under pressure so hard that they just go kaboom. Similar, FM players don't panic and greatly depart from their long-term strategies of signing only promising youngsters simply because success doesn't come immediately. They know it's going to come at some rate, and they're not being put under the same pressure real managers are to bring that success.

Should Sports Interactive introduce difficulty level ? easy, intermediate & hard ?

Should Sports Interactive introduce difficulty level ? easy, intermediate & hard ?

No, imo all they need to do is make the top level AI more competitive. I think that would fix the problem the OP is having.

In terms of tactical ability some AI managers are very capable of doing well but transfers and player development need improving. I love that the transfer market can generate a lot of competition for one of your targets yet at the same time you can find some good players who you can sign without any competition, however, i still feel like it needs to be more competitive.

Alternitavely SI could make scout reports less accurate so its harder for human players to identify good targets although that wouldn't solve issues of people knowing how good some players are at the start of the game based on their real life knowledge of football or by reading suggestions from other players. Thats a problem SI can't do anything about.

I'd like to ask the OP if he truly feels he has "beaten" the game. To me, it's all about striving to become the perfect manager, to imagine whether the fans would look at you as just a very good manager, or the greatest manager.

Do you play the attractive Arsenal/Barcelona football? Have you invented your own footballing identity which would be fun to watch?

Have you aimed to keep to the core values that any club should have - to develop your own talent, the local lads, from a young age?

Are you making your club a profit?

I think you can make it easy for yourself by forsaking two, or maybe even just one of the above. I find the challenge is in being the very best, in every aspect of the game.

Another idea SIgames could think about introducing is acheivement mode. Once you do certain acheivements in Football Manager it unlocks the ability to manage higher reputation clubs.

I'd like to ask the OP if he truly feels he has "beaten" the game. To me, it's all about striving to become the perfect manager, to imagine whether the fans would look at you as just a very good manager, or the greatest manager.

Do you play the attractive Arsenal/Barcelona football? Have you invented your own footballing identity which would be fun to watch?

Have you aimed to keep to the core values that any club should have - to develop your own talent, the local lads, from a young age?

Are you making your club a profit?

I think you can make it easy for yourself by forsaking two, or maybe even just one of the above. I find the challenge is in being the very best, in every aspect of the game.

Isn't the goal of the game to just become #1 manager in the world hall of fame ? isnt that what it really comes down to ?

Should Sports Interactive introduce difficulty level ? easy, intermediate & hard ?

No. They should fix the game AI so AI clubs are better at improving their own squads via transfers, training, and youth development. When they've done that threads like this one and the almost weekly "I've just won the EPL 10 times in a row with [insert non-league team name here]", will be few and far between. The game is a challenge for the first few seasons, but gets progressively easier and easier and less of a challenge the more seasons you play because the AI doesn't have a clue what squad building is and seems to just buy players they neither use nor need. We don't need difficulty levels, we need better AI team building logic so the game keeps challenging us season after season.

Isn't the goal of the game to just become #1 manager in the world hall of fame ? isnt that what it really comes down to ?

Maybe it's just me then. When I'm forging my virtual managerial name, I want it to be for being perfect. The history of my local side has few heroes who weren't advocates of local lads.

For nileppezdel...

Try playing with all attributes and PA / CA reports hidden.

Its not exactly a fix for the broken/poorly implemented AI that offers little challenge, but it will give you an extreme test wether you're a top team in Europe or some obsucure smaller club from the lower league.

Post #12 in the linked thread has the info you need on how to hide certain panels on your game....

http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/261177-Help-me-modify-a-few-panels.

Hopefully SI will improve the AI for FM 12 so we don't have to go to such lengths to get a decent challenge - no matter what clubs we choose to be!

Sure, it's easy to win the Turkish League with a big club like Galatasaray, but you haven't won the ECC yet, so it's not like you are dominating the game.

If you are finding the Turkish League boring but still want to manage your favourite club, the only option you have is to use the editor and move them into a different league. Move them into the English Premier League and try to win that, would be more challenging than Turkey.

No. They should fix the game AI so AI clubs are better at improving their own squads via transfers, training, and youth development. When they've done that threads like this one and the almost weekly "I've just won the EPL 10 times in a row with [insert non-league team name here]", will be few and far between. The game is a challenge for the first few seasons, but gets progressively easier and easier and less of a challenge the more seasons you play because the AI doesn't have a clue what squad building is and seems to just buy players they niether use or need. We don't need difficulty levels, we need better AI team building logic so the game keeps challenging us season after season.

It really is as simple as this. It's harder at the start as the top sides are already set up with a balanced side full of very good players.

This stops happening after several seasons.

Another reason is the lack of random events such as players wanting to leave your club. It's too easy to manipulate player conversations to get them to stay so your own team building is too easy.

Choose more competitive leage then.. Congatuations to winning the league with Gala. I won the SPL with Cetic, makes us both legeds huh?

I agree the regens are horrible, but if you play your save for 5-6 seasons max the players are perfectly fine & realistic. As another poster said, it's the AI team building & regens that are broken, nothing else, so dont try to fix it by implementing difficulty levels & other rubbish.

http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/265372-Challenge-The-Rise-of-Iceland-Difficulty-Hard-Length-Long

There you go.

the regens are not the problem but the AI squad building needs a good overhall, the biggest problem is the AI will never be able to build a team like we do, its just not possible.

Do you think Barcelona sit there saying "Hmm I wish it was harder to win" the simple matter of fact is the game is balanced around being as accurate as possible. Are you hiding all stats and avoiding using recommended players from the forums? That alone makes it more of a challenge to have to find your own players than a list of -9 wonderkids you can sign for just a few million each and have the worlds best team in a few years time.

If you use those kinds of tools tactics and training created by people on here then the game does become infinantly easier. On 11.2 I used a tactic from the forums and had Stoke as comfortably the best team in the world. On 11.3 I'm using my own tactic, training and haven't touched the good player threads on the board on the whole to avoid knowing who will instantly be that talismanic forward or 15 goals from corners defender. It's much more of a challenge to see where I'm going wrong and its damn frustrating, but I'm far more interested in this save than I was in my 11.2 save. Not everyone is the same, but if you are using the forums as a tool to enhance your performance in-game you certainly aren't finding it too easy for yourself.

job on...make it harder, it already takes 3 times as long to get through a season without holidaying than it did in fm 2005, any harder or any more features it will be to much like a second job.

its a game, A GAME its fine as it is

job on...make it harder, it already takes 3 times as long to get through a season without holidaying than it did in fm 2005, any harder or any more features it will be to much like a second job.

its a game, A GAME its fine as it is

THIS x 1,000,000

The game shouldn't progress any slower than it does now. There should be no difficulty slider. Just make the AI managers have a clue about team management and building, and the players a clue about what is best for their own careers, and this will be fine.

The game shouldn't progress any slower than it does now. There should be no difficulty slider. Just make the AI managers have a clue about team management and building, and the players a clue about what is best for their own careers, and this will be fine.

this. The ai squad building needs huge work, and also some tactical wrk

I wonder how many who think the game is spot on in all areas as is currently have found out how oversimplified the squad management parts of the game can be. I had played the game for months before I discovered myself that via player search or any player list you can select and scout dozens of players at once, and all it takes is five seconds, four mouse clicks and a couple in-game days of patience to have solid reports on hundreds of players. A compresive list of who to look after - and who not. Still, at least THAT is something you can opt to exploit or not. For LLMers, player search is forbidden. Likely for a reason.

Similarly I disagree that the transfer market would be fine as it is - sure, occasionally your youngsters demand a move to a bigger club and your key players are being wooed by bigger competition. But playing a mediocre at best German third division side tipped for relegation I had zero problems of giving Villa's Darious Darkin a life-time contract - a bonafide England Under 19 regular in my save. There was never once a bid made by any other club, and not once did Darkin object himself, perhaps by demanding a clause that would make him a more attractive target for better clubs later on - nothing, zero, zilch. And that is one example out of more. Also boards aren't exactly "fine" x 1,000,000 too - as said above. This is AI everyone has to deal with, not a mechanic you can opt to exploit. I suspect it's a weakness not as easily fixed, either. I suspect FM's player database has become so huge that there simply cannot be enough competition for any decent player in the database - of which there might be too many too, the more the lower you go in playing tiers. It's tragic and easily spotted, in particular as some of these faults don't mesh with all the immense detail that is being put into the game elsewhere: from pitch sizes you're meant to care about to player personalities that you are adviced to take a look on when building your squad, the only match engine in any football video game that comes close to the real sports, and so on.

Obviously this is a matter of opinion, but if all that's needed for perfect bliss is a semi-interactive fantasy sports that lets you manage your favorite club for twenty seasons iteration in, iteration out, always going up whilst doing so, then fine. But the claim of the game is to be a sim, and there are many, many, many management games out there that do offer that kind of bedroom manager fantasy as is. Take your club and lead it to glory! Sadly they're not half as good as this one. ;-)

Hey everybody, finally got on my pc. First of all, some people post without reading, what a surprise! I dominated the EPL yoo, with Aston Villa, I missed the title on my first year with a single point when I lost my last game of the season, then I never did.

Quite simply, there are a few lads who understood my problem and responded nicely. The AI sucks about building squads and it's never a competition.

As for the Turkish League, the longest a team has ever dominated the league was Gala for 4 years between 96-2000. After that there were only 2 years in a row championship spells and 4 different clubs have won the league and 3 major clubs fight for the title regularly. There is no way on earth that a club will win the title with 19 points difference. It is not about the team or the league, it is about the AI.

If they simply make the AI better at signing new, talented and "needed" players, and improve AI managers just a tad bit, the game would be much more challenging on the long term. I like to play with players and clubs I know, and like a sane manager without silly limitations. Some may like to play that way too, but the game should be realistic on the top level too

I used to think the game was too easy, and I made a fair few posts about it. That was shortly after the release of FM11 and I was managing Juventus Bucharest in Romania. I was never struggling and was able to sign some great players who I doubt would go to a little known club.

Then I started a new game a couple of months back and it's been a completely different story. With Valur, in Iceland, I struggled to find players that could improve my squad and I resigned more out of frustration that nothing went right. I then went to Wrexham and it's been better, but a sort of similar story. My wage budget is very restrictive and you really have to get lucky with players and build a team spirit.

How do you build a team? Do you scout players or just buy those you know? It places restrictions on you if you rely on a scout network. I know players that would make my team much better but they haven't been picked up by my scouting network so they're not on my radar. I do look at some players I think I'd know as a manager, i.e. ex-Valur players and players at my listed favourite club, Bournemouth, but I do feel that I'd know them and have the knowledge.

I guess I am asking how deep into realism you go? Who did you sign at Villa to make it so easy? Do you mess with the editor?

I meant to add my thoughts on the AI's ability.

There's a big difference between a human player and the AI. The AI is bound by the game rules and restrictions, where as the player can skirt around the boundaries of those restrictions. Like I said earlier, do you sign players not scouted? The AI won't because the AI has no real world knowledge or knowledge of players from past saves. The AI does things by the book.

Now I'm not accusing anyone of cheating, but everyone makes allowances.

SI is also governed by the realism of AI. Maybe it's just not perfect enough to make FM ideal yet.

No I didn't mess with the editor. First off, I signed the best scouts and coaches I could find. And of course physios so I didn't have a huge injury problem. Then I signed Moussa Sissoko and Yaya Sanogo I guess. Hard to remember, it's been months since I played that game. I sold some players for nice amount, it's really easy to sell average players for modest sums. Ireland put in a world class performance, Sanogo was of course godlike in 11.2 I bought Babacar as well, when I found the money. Barry Bannan and Marc Albrighton are quite talented youngsters for Villa, I used them a lot too and that is pretty much how I got so successful, it's much easier in EPL since you get lots of money for your final position, and the TV rights

well top clubs have nice scouting and youth recruitment networks already, so scouting shouldn't be much of a problem. And I usually buy scouted players, my backroom staff offered me Sanogo and Babacar many times

what lower clubs you managed?

i played as UTD and Juv managers and was in top, but again i signed best players around. as i can see players Skills, this is an advantage no real life manager will have. so sure you must win.. the only solution for SI to counter that is that it make the game harder than IRL to balance that advantage, and that is unrealistic.

beside playing with top clubs, you will usually win, so you never have problems with moral and confidence

i've seen many crap managers doing well IRL just because they manage big side.

try to play with small lower league club and come to me if you still find it easy. as in lower clubs you don't have that advantage, as most of players who want to join you have masked skills, and worst you lose alot and managing players moral will be big task

the other points is, many here in this forum are saying the game is already hard, some are just new to the game, so is kind selfish trying to push the game and make it even harder for them. i wish if you put a poll and try to know what majority of people opinion are. the game can't fellow me or you, but should fellow the majority wish.. without that poll, your post is kind subjective and is only about you.

Look, I've just wrote this above. Statistically, we don't see total dominations in european football. We see them every 20-30 years or so. I can see the players' skills but the AI can (or should) too. Let's say I'm United and I always win so morale wouldn't be an issue. First of all, complacency would and should be an issue for top teams. And second, Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool and perhaps City are top clubs too so they should win too. I'm saying, top class management should be more realistic, even Mourinho or Sir Ferguson can't win the title 6 years in a row. So it should be much harder for us to do so. Leave the lower league difficulty the same, I'm just saying that top clubs' squad building AI should be upgraded in order to provide a real challenge for you and a realistic league

Pretty easy with a big club like Chelsea (unless your rep is really low) but seriously this game is really tough in the lower leagues and I think that's where this game is most enjoyable.

Some people have missed the point completely.

We shouldn't have to manage a lower league club just to find a challenge in this game. The challenge should be there wether you're AC Milan or Accrington Stanley. i.e. If I support AC Milan and only want to manage the club I love & support I still want to be challenged and not have an easy ride of it. I want other AI clubs to push me all the way wether its season 1 or season 20.

As others have stated, the first few seasons are fine because the vast majority of clubs have well balanced squads and good players. The game is challenging and fun. Unfortunately as time passes and the seasons roll by the AI rarely if ever improves its squad of players with equally as good or better players, on the whole it replaces them with much weaker players. Eventually pretty much every AI club becomes weaker and weaker the longer you play. The only club that improves is YOURS because you're not bound by p!ss-poor AI logic. Its a fundemental flaw with the quality of regens or more likely a fundemental flaw in AI to AI transfer policy.

Its not rocket science to see where the problem lies. Offering band-aid fixes like lower league management and suggesting player-made challenges to make it tougher are fine, but they just paper over the cracks.

I would like SI to improve AI team building and link it to the quality of their AI manager. The better the AI manager is the more likely he is to look at his squad, then look at the gameworld and see which players are better than what he already has, factor in financial situations and reps and see him actively target players HIS CLUB ACTUALLY NEEDS. At the moment it looks pretty much random and pot-luck who AI clubs go out and buy - often buying players they neither need or even use (at least on my saves it does). Hence from about the 5th or 6th season in, the game challenge fades considerably. It doesn't matter where you manage, or who you manage, the underlying problem remains the same - the gameworld gets weaker and weaker the more seasons you play, and its only a matter of time before you notice it.

Maybe it's just me then. When I'm forging my virtual managerial name, I want it to be for being perfect. The history of my local side has few heroes who weren't advocates of local lads.

Its not just you, when i'm managing at the top level not only do i want to be the top manager but i want the club to be top of the coefficient rankings and to be the richest club in the world. I want to develop so many quality youth players i can win a champions league trophy with an entirely homegrown squad.