Football Manager - wheres the fun gone?

Hey guys, I love footie management games having played on the titles over the years! I also would see myself having a good knowledge of football in general. However I really do believe these games are too hard. There unfortunately doesn't seem to be any way in which someone with not much previous management game experiance or knowledge on tactics can play the game and do well (without being a huge club or having a huge transer fund at your disposal). It really is no fun.

Rant over haha!

Be interesting to see what you guys think?!

Welcome.

Football is a hard business. As a game, the reward lies in analyzing and, by experience/knowledge, applying the right tactics/taking the right decisions in general. Study the tactics forum. Analyze your team. Try finding an answer for your situation. I see it more like chess and if you don't like to analyze, you won't go far without frustrations. The game grows on you and the more you explore the depths and widths of the experience beneath the surface, you will have a lot of fun/satisfaction. I am still learning myself and the tactics forum is top notch.

It is initially very difficult and frustrating but part of fun is learning how the game works. Very rewarding when you crack it too.

If anything it ends up a bit too easy, if you can believe that. I bought FM07 after not having played any version of the game since 2001 and at times I wanted to throw it in the bin.

Toward the end of FM08 I found it easy just because I managed to accumulate the best team in whichever league I played in, and my tactics were sound (though not great). I commonly had 30-40 of my players in national Under 21 teams. Most of them were out on loan.

Hopefully in FM09 scouting, buying and retaining hot prospects is a bit more difficult - I haven't had a chance to play it yet but I finished uni for the year yesterday and have the day off work today. I'll be starting my first game when I get back from KFC.

FM09 is the first one for me, but is a lot of fun. Very hard to understand at the beginning but FUN

If you haven't played the prior incarnations of FM I can see FM09 being pretty difficult to get into. To manual can only be so thick, meaning a number of the finer points simply cannot be included to help virgin FMers. That's why I think these forums SHOULD be so important. Of course, some days it's just used by the petulant and impatient to vent their spleen, but if you get the right forum they are an essential tool. I think of Good Player Guide and Tactics forum as a year-round manager conference, discussing potential players and how certain tactics are working.

Perhaps there should be a longer more in-depth PDF for download, or even a hardcopy for those who REALLY want to get ino the game. There's a tactics bible in the forum which I found useful a couple of years ago. But these days I tend to stay out of threads that discuss how to beat teams using programming flaws (although I couldn't ignore the corner exploit last year).

I find FM09 sometimes easier than FM08, but I've been on the wrong end of some seriously annoying come-backs (up 2-0 against Man U and Chelsea, lost both 3-2) but with FM08 you could see when the AI was laying on the infamous 4-2-4 and I'd sit back and laugh as their best efforts bounced off my defence and midfield; I've seen 4-2-4 on FM09 but so far it's not been an issue... it's when the AI makes LITTLE changes. So from past experience and the buildup of my experience on FM09 I know that when I'm 2-0 up against a technically better team (I'm Newcastle at the moment) I have to adjust my tactics somewhat - a mentality that I believe reflects real life. I'll get there, though.

What I'm saying is that these little bits of incremental knowledge soon build up so that the gamer can enjoy playing and winning eventually. I was on the verge of giving up on CM01/02 until - as Leeds - I beat Man U 1-0 and felt as good as if it was a real game.

I came home from work last night and, excluding toilet breaks and when I went for dinner, I pretty much played non-stop 'til I went to bed. I could have sworn I was having fun!

Agree with everything backpackant says. One thing I would add, the progression to FM from other management games is quite big, and whilst other man games can get away with just being fun and winning by hefty margins FM really can't, as you become involved in the game realism becomes fun. That's not to say people who have been playing for longer don't find it frustrating, sadly we seem to thrive on that frustration

Mike, do you not have fun on your toilet breaks, toilet breaks are some of my few chances to relax properly every day and I make the most of them.

Reading on the toilet is fb

Reading on the toilet is fb

I lost 2-0 while playing on the lap-top on the toilet last night:o.

I lost 2-0 while playing on the lap-top on the toilet last night:o.

I hope you weren't watching the full match

How much fun I have in my toilet breaks is pretty dependent on what I've been eating lately.

I lost 2-0 while playing on the lap-top on the toilet last night:o.

FM can really help if you're a little... backed up.

I lost 2-0 while playing on the lap-top on the toilet last night:o.

If I had a loptop I would probably spend a lot longer on the toilet to be fair

If I had a loptop I would probably spend a lot longer on the toilet to be fair

I shudder to think what a loptop is.

It's very hard, but very very good. I never thought I'd be so happy getting 10 draws in a row, and coming back and drawing the game in the last minute, or working hard and trying different tactics to score or stop the other team from scoring. Its awesome.

I like the game so much that I'm gutted to be spending the whole weekend at a friend's place in Cumbria. Beautiful part of the world, and all I can think about is how I won't get to spend the weekend at my computer!

(Before you start to think I'm obsessive, I'm exaggerating.)

Well SI try to accurately simulate real world football, therefore being hard is a necessity, otherwise it wouldn't be referred to as a football management simulation. You don't go to a Call of Duty forum and complain that it's too easy and in real life you'd die, because you understand it's a game with a specific audience in mind

Well it's the same thing here, just because you don't like it doesn't mean SI should change their approach and make it any easier, because there are hundreds of thousands of others who do like the challenge and that is the market FM is aimed at

With that in mind perhaps it's best you find a football game targetted more for your audience, the casual gamer who wants success with minimal effort, ala FIFA