FM and the frustrating results...

So here it goes...

The new season is on its way. The first challenge was the supercup, against my rivals (and my rivals are way weaker them me). I lost by 3-0. Ok, but i used some b-team players so i accept that.

Them it was time for the league. 5 games 5 wins. Nice. Them, the league match against my rivals. This time i used my best players, BUT instead of the usual 3-5-2, ive used 4-4-2, making 4 defenders instead of 3, but still with my top players. Remember that my rivals are way weaker them my team.

Here we go!!

At the 6th minute they score with one of those super far away goals. I was: "What??" I mean, the player who scored is crap, in the real life to, yet he manage to curl the ball like ronaldinho from far away, beating my GK(that isn't bad). I start thinking: "ok, this cant be good. I know whats coming..." bet my ass!

5 minutes later my team equalizes the game. Ok. So there is a little hope. On the 35th minute my rivals score again, AGAIN by that crap player, AGAIN from a long shot. So i pretty knew what was coming, so at half-time im losing 2-1. I change back to my 3-5-2.

At the time i changed, the team got a little better and manage to score at 50 and 82 by the same player making it 3-2 now. Ok. So with less them 5 minutes to the end, i select a most defensive team...BUT has i predicted, i LOST 4-3! Both goals were scored at the 90th minute...give me a break really FM.

Now this can be the tactic has FM mocked me after the match: "X Tactics didnt work etc". OK, ive put 4 defenders, all top class instead of the usual 3. That would gave me a nice defense right? Wrong. Despite changing to my "normal" formation at half-time and managing to turn around the result to 3-2, the "opponents team will score and win at the 90th minute despite the tactics" worked perfectly. That and the "50m away shots to".

Im angry

Your smiley confuses me. :confused: Are you really or are you ?

If you were serious, and want help, it sounds to me like two or three issues may be happening.

1. Goal in the first five or six minutes against you, especially from a long shot, usually equals "wrong team-talk". So, what are you usually team-talking for rivals matches, as its two you've lost?

2. The shift to the 4-4-2. Are your players familiar with the 4-4-2? Are you using it fairly frequently, e.g., 10+ matches in the previous 12 months? Or were you expecting your players to do well in a formation that they probably haven't practiced much, if at all.

3. How effective are your "Most defensive team" tactics? Go back and look at matches which you've used them in - are you likely to concede in the final ten minutes, or was this a one-off?

- a. If the former - Many people make their "defensive" tactic improperly, resulting in strange things like the striker running to the corner flag instead of shooting into an empty net, or defenders putting the ball out for a corner while not under any pressure.

- b. If the latter - It may have been motivation based; not so much that you got your team-talk wrong, but that the opposition got his right .. or that your players relaxed too much because they thought that the result was in the bag.

Other question is, do you use the Media Interaction bit? Did you answer the pre-match comment? If so, what was your response and what "PR" results did your players have? If not, did you consider releasing any "Mind games" comments to mess with your big rival?

Plenty of things to think about ...

My frustrating results usually come when I hit the top of the league and then start to draw against the bottom teams when I really should be building a points lead and making promotion safe

LutonNil thats always when im at my worst too and yes drawing with bottom of the league teams consatantly whilst next week smashing liverpool/chelsea/man u is annoying

LutonNil thats always when im at my worst too and yes drawing with bottom of the league teams consatantly whilst next week smashing liverpool/chelsea/man u is annoying

That is down to your tactics.

You beat the "big teams" as your tactics for playing against them are good. They play a more open attacking for of ffotball, which your tactics obviously couters. Failing against the "smaller teams" is because they play defensively and it is up to you to break them down.

If you are not getting the desired results then you need to tweak around with your tactics when playing against bigger or smaller teams.

Likewise, toy with your team-talks and motivation: your tactics *could* be solid, but if your players expect a cake-walk, they may be playing with less than full motivation.

I agree with Amaroq there. I usually tweak this by putting into the team against lower opponents some players that would not normally have been playing in the regular team.

But sometimes you get really weird things like your GK suddenly thinks he is Barthez trying to dribble the opposing striker (despite high concentration and low "weirdness"- cannot remember the exact term used in fm) to usually disastrous effects (that happened to me twice in the season just gone by- I still won the championship and he played all games)

Likewise, toy with your team-talks and motivation: your tactics *could* be solid, but if your players expect a cake-walk, they may be playing with less than full motivation.

That is the biggest problem with the game though (or one of them). Tactics you can tweak as the game goes on if you get them wrong so you can experiment and change things around to try to get a result, but team talks are just a blanket modifier to cover a whole 45 minutes and if you get it wrong there is nothing at all you can do other than try not to do the same thing next time...except that when I give the same team talk in two similar situations (e.g. before a tough away game or 0-1 up in an away game against a lesser team or whatever it may be) I seem to get very different results so learning the expensive mistake that you made the wrong team talk in one game doesn't always help you to avoid doing it again.

So we get back to everyone's usual answer on team talks - go and read Wolfsong's "great" thread and everything will be fine...since when has a feature that requires you to read a thread containing a detailed analysis which has presumably taken place under totally unrealistic circumstances (otherwise there would be no control cases, no consistency etc and it would be meaningless) in order to avoid making a single match-losing mistake that can't be recovered from been deemed acceptable?! I don't mind making tactical mistakes just because my tactical knowledge isn't as good as it might be - I can learn from that (putting aside some clear match engine bugs), but I hate a feature that has so huge an impact yet is so inconsistent and incomprehensible in a realistic setting (i.e. learning from your own team talks and mistakes, not from a thread that tells you exactly which team talks to give when).

So we get back to everyone's usual answer on team talks - go and read Wolfsong's "great" thread and everything will be fine...since when has a feature that requires you to read a thread containing a detailed analysis which has presumably taken place under totally unrealistic circumstances (otherwise there would be no control cases, no consistency etc and it would be meaningless) in order to avoid making a single match-losing mistake that can't be recovered from been deemed acceptable?! I don't mind making tactical mistakes just because my tactical knowledge isn't as good as it might be - I can learn from that (putting aside some clear match engine bugs), but I hate a feature that has so huge an impact yet is so inconsistent and incomprehensible in a realistic setting (i.e. learning from your own team talks and mistakes, not from a thread that tells you exactly which team talks to give when).

That is exactly how I feel.

Glam, that's the second post of yours in as many days that totally mirrors my own views. You are fast becoming my new forum hero.

Heres another great match!

Ive won...6-0 against my other rivals that are in the same "team balance" has me and are way batter them the other rival team(the one i lost 4-3)...

And noticed this after the 6-0 win:

guess the result of the other opponent team? (the "weak" rivals) 6-0 to...

Coincidence? I dont think so...

That is the biggest problem with the game though (or one of them). Tactics you can tweak as the game goes on if you get them wrong so you can experiment and change things around to try to get a result, but team talks are just a blanket modifier to cover a whole 45 minutes and if you get it wrong there is nothing at all you can do other than try not to do the same thing next time...except that when I give the same team talk in two similar situations (e.g. before a tough away game or 0-1 up in an away game against a lesser team or whatever it may be) I seem to get very different results so learning the expensive mistake that you made the wrong team talk in one game doesn't always help you to avoid doing it again.

So we get back to everyone's usual answer on team talks - go and read Wolfsong's "great" thread and everything will be fine...since when has a feature that requires you to read a thread containing a detailed analysis which has presumably taken place under totally unrealistic circumstances (otherwise there would be no control cases, no consistency etc and it would be meaningless) in order to avoid making a single match-losing mistake that can't be recovered from been deemed acceptable?! I don't mind making tactical mistakes just because my tactical knowledge isn't as good as it might be - I can learn from that (putting aside some clear match engine bugs), but I hate a feature that has so huge an impact yet is so inconsistent and incomprehensible in a realistic setting (i.e. learning from your own team talks and mistakes, not from a thread that tells you exactly which team talks to give when).

Yes.

I felt, when I was frequently getting them wrong (Uhh.. all of FM'06, all of FM'07, I think I have to admit) that team talks had too much of an impact, that they were too hit-or-miss, and that I had little chance to predict the correct talk, to recover after an error, or to learn from my mistakes.

For FM'08, I did read Wolfsong's - and Communication and Psychological Warfare - but rather than taking detailed notes and memorizing a formula, I internalized the general lessons: its not always "bad" to give "None", its dangerous but sometimes necessary to say "Pleased" at halftime, the system is heavily based on the odds but you will also have individuals who need special treatment, and a mediocre performance in one match may be indicative of an onset of complacency which needs to be addressed.

... and with that internalization, I appear to have gotten good at them. I don't often have the "my perfectly good team suddenly implodes inexplicably" experience. I do feel like I have a pretty good chance to predict a correct talk, I've definitely felt like I've been learning from my mistakes, and though I still suspect that they have too much influence I'm no longer convinced that its badly balanced. I do ask my Assistant's advice every match, but there are times when I think "Oh, you are soooo wrong" and completely override him.

I really wish that the game had been able to communicate those lessons to me, rather than having me go to an external source for it.

I'd like much better tools in-game for tracking the impact of team-talks over time, so I can learn from extended patterns, not just from my last match.

I'd like my Assistant to give me explicit commentary, perhaps an e-mail, indicating when a team-talk worked very well, or worked very poorly - so that I can differentiate team-talk error from tactical error. I'd like him to bring concerns about specific players .. "You keep piling pressure on Joe Wimpy, and I think that's why he hasn't scored in ten hours. You've got to try to relax him a bit."

If we're going to keep the current system, that's the direction I'd like to see it go.

I've also proposed alternate systems elsewhere, for example, a system in which your team-talk could focus on certain Mental aspects of the game, e.g., you could inspire additional Concentration, additional Bravery, additional Work Rate, or additional Team Work .. in a pattern that wouldn't make the numbers overwhelming, but would basically shift things from a "Don't hit the whammy!" game to a more tactical "Where do you think your team needs help this game?" mechanic.

Since team talks influence a full 45 minutes then hopefully SI will allow us the option to talk to oncoming players to spur them onto being super subs or the ability to shout at players who are playing at say a 5 or mayby a 6 if we are lucky

since when has a feature that requires you to read a thread containing a detailed analysis which has presumably taken place under totally unrealistic circumstances in order to avoid making a single match-losing mistake that can't be recovered from been deemed acceptable?!

I've lost count of the amount of games I've played where I had to go on the internet to get past a certain part.

Saying that, I never liked the team talks but they are much easier than people make out. I have never read the team talk guide but I have never had any trouble with them. I go by two general rules.

1) Say what feels right.

2) If nothing feels right, say nothing. 'None' is very misunderstood, people expect it to be a negative talk but it is actually fitting for alot of situations.