Ridiculously hard & stupid match engine!

I've been a devoted servant of CM/FM from the beginning .. & with the beginning I mean from the first time Championship Manager came out. Up til today I've purchased ALL series .... but I've NEVER, & I repeat, NEVER been faced with a ridiculous, stupid & non-sense game like FM09! I'm sure I will no longer be such a devoted servant of SI games! And I will outline the various reasons that have made me so furious over the past weeks.

1. Yes, as many have said the game is SOOOO RIDICULOUSLY hard! I mean, let's make it clear, I'm not the type of person that expects to win every game or every cup. NOT AT ALL! I love the challenge & I don't like easy games. BUT FM09 is toooooooo hard .. not even Alex Ferguson will manage to be successful in it, I'm sure about that. FM08 wasn't easy but it wasn't extra hard & the challenge was there - it was exciting, not like FM09. I've restarted the game countless times .. I've tried thousands of different tactics/formations/player instructions etc etc etc but all to no avail. Sometimes a tactic works well for about 3 or maybe 4 games, but then it makes your players look like they've never played football. Oh come on! If a tactic is right for the team, the team will perform. Yes, there may be a slight lack of form but not a completely lack of form like in FM09!! Also, I believe that you should be patient with a tactic .. & OH GOD, was I patient?!?! But now ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!

2. What about the match engine?!!?! It's so bloody stupid that it makes you vomit! Just to mention a few - a player passing the ball & he's sooo stupid that he just hits his team-mate while passing - the result, a goal against us!! And this has happened a million times!!! Come on!! I'm not saying that mistakes don't happen but NOT SUCH STUPID MISTAKES like in FM09!! And mind you, I was managing Liverpool & not, with all due respect, Kidderminster!!! I don't expect these continuous stupid mistakes from a team like Liverpool. They don't happen so often (almost never) in real life & THIS MAKES FM09 SOOOOOO UNREAL! Another example .. once Pepe Reina (everyone knows he's a good GK) conceded a goal from almost the middle of the pitch - it was a poorly taken freekick which even my mother would catch, but for some strange reason Pepe (or better the stupid match engine of FM09) just let the ball slip through his hands!! Come on!! Furthermore, how come ALMOST ALL the 50-50 tackles are won by opponents??? & I don't play Easy Tackling! Another stupidity! And what about the CLEAR-CUT CHANCES?????? On soooooooo many occasions, Fernando Torres misses chances one-on-one with the keeper that even my cat would be able to score them!!!! & we're talking about Torres here ... cos if it was N'Gog I would accept it, maybe ... but not Torres! & if the match engine is stupid for my team, on the other hand it's soooooo intelligent for the opponents! I just remain astonished by the capability of certain lower teams how they manage for example to perform regular defence-splitting passes! Unbelievable! & what about the crosses?!?!?! From thousands or even millions of crosses, maybe I manage to score 2! Does that happen in real life?!? Does it?! & why not mention the penalties!! Chelsea, Arsenal & Man U all had about 8-10 penalties in half a season!!! Goodness me ... the refs must really love them! & finally (not that there aren't more stupid things in the match engine but it's impossible to mention them all) .. why the hell do the players have to smash the ball when shooting????? It seems like I have rugby players in the team & not football players!!!

3. This will be my last point cos if I continue writing, I just won't stop! Again I will mention tactics coz like many other things, they're so UNREAL! So I've downloaded & read the tactics tips from SI (that's how desperate I was!)... & they say that if you're playing on a long pitch you should play narrow & if you're playing on a short pitch you should go wide! Yea ... that's what I've been trying to do but I tell you ... IT DOESN'T WORK!!!! I repeat ... I've tried so many different tactics & I tried to follow the logic suggested by the 'experts' but ALL FOR NOTHING! Of course .. coz the game is so stupid & impossible that's why. And as I said earlier, Im not new to these type of games ... so I've got experience. I've been playing the CM/FM series for almost 11 years now, so I'm sure I've got the know-how of tactics etc etc! But when you're playing a stupid game like FM09, it doesn't matter whether you're a beginner or an expert coz you will not succeed.

I've been tempted to break into pieces the FM09 DVD-ROM on numerous occasions (that's how mad it's been driving me) but when I remember that I've paid good money for it, I just don't do it. But now I am certain that I WILL NEVER PLAY FM09 AGAIN at least until the SI family come out with a patch that will remove these stupidities & improve the overall game.

Shame on you SI! I've never expected such a crap game from you. You've lost a big fan.

Anthony:mad:

have to say i'm not a fan of the ge either. i'm bored of seing the same goals and mistakes time and time again, it's all so predicatble. the transfer system is poor and the new gens are stupidly good. i also think that with player instructions you would expect them to try and achieve them, as in if you play short passing your players try to do that not just lump ball after ball up front. still haven't seen a keeper i've played against get under a 7 yet at any level. all in all its probably the worst fm game, yup even worse than champ 4.

Thanks for making my day.. it was a quite funny thread - Your ability to disguise a joke in rambling nonsense is brilliant..

& they say that if you're playing on a long pitch you should play narrow & if you're playing on a short pitch you should go wide!

We say 'if you are playing on a narrow pitch, play wide, if you are playing on a wide pitch, play narrow.' I think you have misread something. Length of pitch is related to d-line, not formation width.

You also seem to be having the most common problem of all frustrated FM players, in that you over-tweak and try too many things out. Trying 1000s of tactics/formations/players is not the way to go. Working out a system that you are comfortable with and sticking to it is.

I've been a devoted servant of CM/FM from the beginning...

Ah, you've found the template. Don't discount wwfan's input. Sage advice that...

Whilst I might agree, in part, with some of the OP's points it just comes across as a complete rant. If you've played all the other games I dont see how you could drop the ball so badly with FM09. I'm quite enjoying it, yes even the matches which I think play out quite well to my instructions.

Yes there are some annoying things (long shot = goal from rubbish players far too often, ball bouncing off of players backs/heads/body and general ping-pong nature of some scraps, players sliding up/down pitch and not animating blah blah - there are a ton of things that could be fixed and some will perhaps be cured in the forthcoming patch2). They do not wreck the match experience and I would disagree its too hard.

It could be explained to players a little better sure, but once you know its all about enabling players to be able to pass to one another by ensuring they are not too far apart from one another and on occassion tweaking during a match (if you really want to get the best out of it) you'll be half-way there. Stick with a decent tactic (4321) and create home/away versions and let the team learn how to play through it all.

Anyway, complete rant without solid foundation. Meh.

I find I need to alternate beetween a few tactics too be successful. Seems AI managers crack your tactics extremely quickly. PLay the same tactics for 6-7 game and every manager in the game know your tactics better than your players do.

I also have some problems with the game but its not THAT bad. I will wait for the second patch and see what difference that makes. But yes sometimes it feels like the AI managers see through your tactics and exploit your every weakness. Or maybe it just feels that way because we weren't careful enough to weigh out all the factors. But sometimes it's just a bit difficult to adapt your tactics to counter the problem in certain matches.

I cant be bothered ranting about how cretinous FM09 is. I tried for the final time on Saturday to give it a go......I was bored and wound-up by the end - Ridiculous .

Yesterday I re-installed FM08 with the patches and played for about 8 hours non-stop .

FM08 is ALOT better than FM09. Its fun.

I cant be bothered ranting about how cretinous FM09 is. I tried for the final time on Saturday to give it a go......I was bored and wound-up by the end - Ridiculous .

Yesterday I re-installed FM08 with the patches and played for about 8 hours non-stop .

FM08 is ALOT better than FM09. Its fun.

yeah for the simple people who can't play FM09. If you're any good at it then its not trust me.

and by simple, I mean people who just want to click 4-4-2 and win the champions league with oxford.

yeah for the simple people who can't play FM09. If you're any good at it then its not trust me.

and by simple, I mean people who just want to click 4-4-2 and win the champions league with oxford.

I have made a rather successful tactic (look at the tactics section). I have made successful tactics for all FM games in the past.

This version of the game just isn't any good. Its dull.

I've been a devoted servant of CM/FM from the beginning ..

Oh, well if that's the case, you must be right.

The match engine isn't perfect. Some of the mistakes the players make are a bit weird, or worse. But on the whole it works very well. I don't have any major gripes with it. And I'm loving the game as a whole.

yeah for the simple people who can't play FM09. If you're any good at it then its not trust me.

and by simple, I mean people who just want to click 4-4-2 and win the champions league with oxford.

I think this is a very childish comment,I tried all of last week to get the game to be fun,I dont care if I am winning everything I am quite happy battling it out in the Championship or league 1 trying to build my team as the season's go by,I dont D/L pre-made tactics as I want to be in charge of my team and not just pushing buttons while using someone else's hard work.

There is a problem with FM09 and the fun factor and I dont think you posting "yeah for simple people who can't play FM09" is going to change anyone's mind.

The problem is, the people who don't think the game is fun are far more vocal than those who are busy having bags of fun with it.

The problem is, the people who don't think the game is fun are far more vocal than those who are busy having bags of fun with it.

True, but I bet the number of people not having bags of fun with it far out-weigh people enjoying it. IMO that is.

True, but I bet the number of people not having bags of fun with it far out-weigh people enjoying it. IMO that is.

On these forums, probably, in total, I doubt it.

The problem is, the people who don't think the game is fun are far more vocal than those who are busy having bags of fun with it.

Interesting theory,I am a member of quite a few gamming forums as I play alot of different type of games and the 1 thing I have found is if the game is really fun then the forums are full of postive threads if it isnt fun the it is full of negative threads.

In the case of FM09 I have seen enough negative posts to suggest there is a problem and alot of players not enjoying it,blindly saying that the people enjoying are too busy to post about how much fun it is doesnt hold much water in my opinion.

Hate the defender standing still waiting for the striker to steal it and score.

Hate the AI GK launching the ball straight to the striker who naturally burries it.

Hate the ludicrous number of long range shots (both AI & human) that go in.

Hate the way the game automatically adjusts the AI tactics when a player goes off for an injury to get defensive cover or midfield cover yet will leave the big gap in a human's tactics (only way to avoid this is to watch the entire game!)

Hate that SI STILL have not just added a (restart) button when its reported a scout has completed his search on the messages (tedious-not user friendly).

Hate the way FM uses close to 100% CPU even when it appears to be doing very little. Also it makes no difference even if you watch in 2D or text only!

Always enjoyed FM however, I just cannot get into FM09.

Interesting theory,I am a member of quite a few gamming forums as I play alot of different type of games and the 1 thing I have found is if the game is really fun then the forums are full of postive threads if it isnt fun the it is full of negative threads.

Yes, but other games have no real life aspect that they can be compared to and as such considered unrealistic. A majority of the complaints about FM are based on the realism and how it compares to real life, if GTA or MGS were treated in the same way, then no-one would like them

I, like many other, have tried to give the game a fair crack of the whip, but like last year's FM before the proper patch came out, it's just too annoying for me. The girlfriend was out on her Xmas party on Friday, so I had the whole night to myself to play, but ending up turning it off after about four hours cause it just wasn't enjoyable. Given that I had been looking forward to having 8-10 hours of solid play, this is not like me. At all.

I have been playing as Liverpool, and even though we have been doing alright, there are just way too many games where the result does not bear enough of a relationship to how the two teams have performed during the match. Now, before people start jumping in, saying 'not all matches are won by the best team...I once saw a match where one team had 700 shots but lost 2-0...' I am clever enough to realise that football is a numbers/probabilities game where you can never guarantee a goal or a win.

However, over the balance of a season, I would expect my team to have a similar goals/chance ratio as the opposition (if not slightly better as we have better strikers and goalkeeper), so that I win most games where I completely dominate (3 or 4 times more chances than the opponets), draw games that are relatively even, and lose those that we are being dominated.

But, just like FM08 when released, I draw far too many games where we have had 12 shots (proper shots; I'm not stupid enough to set all my players to long shots or similar tactic just so that we have a high count of useless chances), and the opposition (such as Bolton) have 3 shots and we draw 2-2. Don't mind if that happens 2 or 3 times in a season, but every third league match is annoying.

I wouldn't mind if we were drawing matches where we were NOT completely dominating, then I could think about why we were only having 50% possession, or only creating the same number of chances as them, but by the time I switched off on Friday, I was third in the league, 12 points behind Chelsea (having just lost 1-nil at home to them, having 9 shots to 1, they scored from a long ball assist from their keeper), and ALL the dropped points (apart from away draw at Arsenal and loss at Old Trafford), had been from matches where I had at least 2-5 times more chances than opponents.

I know third in the league is OK for Liverpool at half-way point of first season, but I'm very good at the game and take about 45 minutes to set up and play each match, and have good tactics that allow me to dominate matches.

I guess my point, after all the rambing, is that I'm just a bit annoyed, that I'm now not able to play the game until the January patch, when I had been looking forward to it so much. I'm a thirty year-old accountant, and had been FAR too excited about the game coming out, reading all about it for months beforehand, and now I can't really play it cause it's just not that enjoyable to play.

I haven't seen any noticable match bugs that haven't been identified in the bugs forum. And if history has taught us anything, it's that recent FM games really don't play well until the 2nd patch is out.

Yes it should play better out of the box, but I only really care about my gaming experience, and as such I will hold off full judgement on the game until I have played a few seasons on 9.2

If FM09 was basically FM08 after its second patch, with up-dated player info and a decent 3D match engine and maybe the odd tactical tweak here and there it would be hailed as the best FM yet.

They didn't do that though.

but I'm very good at the game and take about 45 minutes to set up and play each match, and have good tactics that allow me to dominate matches.

I was enjoying your post until I read this, are you serious? The game is evolving and will get harder, that's life. That comment is like saying, i'm Liverpool football club and we're really good at football, but as soon as the 90's arrived the game just got too hard.

If FM09 was basically FM08 after its second patch, with up-dated player info and a decent 3D match engine and maybe the odd tactical tweak here and there it would be hailed as the best FM yet.

They didn't do that though.

That's your view, but there were dozens of threads complaining about FM08 not being a big enough jump from FM07, so you can't please everyone.

Yes, but other games have no real life aspect that they can be compared to and as such considered unrealistic. A majority of the complaints about FM are based on the realism and how it compares to real life, if GTA or MGS were treated in the same way, then no-one would like them

Well it is still a game and in turn it still has to be fun,the most complaints I have seen is the micro managing and blind tactics sliders.

I know I may get flamed for this but not once when buying the CM/FM series did I ever hand over my cash hoping to get a 2nd job,I was just hoping(and got for the most part)many many hours of great fun,in 09 that is missing,well for me at least.

I agree with you on that point, and I suggest downloading a tactic. It might feel a bit like cheating, but I just couldn't be bothered spending 3 months of my "free" time trying to create a tactic form 09 and downloaded kanp's tactic, i'm loving FM09 now.

I haven't seen any noticable match bugs that haven't been identified in the bugs forum. And if history has taught us anything, it's that recent FM games really don't play well until the 2nd patch is out.

Yes it should play better out of the box, but I only really care about my gaming experience, and as such I will hold off full judgement on the game until I have played a few seasons on 9.2

See, I agree with this to an extent, but when you get the whole keeper assist bug, which is blatantly noticeable even just playing key highlights for five minutes, you have to wonder where all the hours of testing the ME go.

I was enjoying your post until I read this, are you serious? The game is evolving and will get harder, that's life. That comment is like saying, i'm Liverpool football club and we're really good at football, but as soon as the 90's arrived the game just got too hard.

Yes, the game is getting harder, which is why I now take so much longer playing it (used to fly though a season in a day when I was player CM01/02 at Uni).

Becuase I take so much longer, I have much better tactics, a very happy squad and always pick a very balanced, fully fit team.

Because the team is so good, they go out and dominate matches and create lots of chances against relatively poor opposition. But draw.

Liverpool became rubbish in the 90's because they had rubbish managers (such as Souness) who bought in rubbish players (such as Mark Walters). They therefore did NOT dominate matches, and it was completely fair that did NOT win many matches.

Because the team is so good, they go out and dominate matches and create lots of chances against relatively poor opposition. But draw.

Stoke? Fulham? West Ham?

Liverpool were woefully uncreative against both West Ham and Fulham.

Yes, the game is getting harder, which is why I now take so much longer playing it (used to fly though a season in a day when I was player CM01/02 at Uni).

Becuase I take so much longer, I have much better tactics, a very happy squad and always pick a very balanced, fully fit team.

Because the team is so good, they go out and dominate matches and create lots of chances against relatively poor opposition. But draw.

Liverpool became rubbish in the 90's because they had rubbish managers (such as Souness) who bought in rubbish players (such as Mark Walters). They therefore did NOT dominate matches, and it was completely fair that did NOT win many matches.

So your actual problem is strikers/team not converting chances? In which case, and with all due respect, you aren't brilliant at the game because it's a tactical fault. Please don't take that the wrong way, but there are many factors that may be causing your players not to take their chances, but all are tactical.

Actually, strikers not scoring enough has been raised as a bug, and IIRC has been acknowledged and is being tweaked in 9.2

I've not had problems myself, apart from the inability to score a 1 on 1.

So your actual problem is strikers/team not converting chances? In which case, and with all due respect, you aren't brilliant at the game because it's a tactical fault. Please don't take that the wrong way, but there are many factors that may be causing your players not to take their chances, but all are tactical.

Which brings us back to the circular argument about tactics being too complicated.

If you're watching your team constantly blow what appear to be easy misses, shoot from long range when through on goal despite being set to 'rarely' and see the commentary "how did he miss that?", "the crowd are shaking their heads in disbelief" etc time and again, it becomes a tactical guessing game.

I'm not arguing that sirdez24, and if you've read any of my 09 posts you'll know I feel the same, but the fact of the matter is that people have created successful tactics for 09 and it can be done. An inability to do so, or lack of time is our fault and not the games.

So your actual problem is strikers/team not converting chances? In which case, and with all due respect, you aren't brilliant at the game because it's a tactical fault. Please don't take that the wrong way, but there are many factors that may be causing your players not to take their chances, but all are tactical.

I only play one up front, which is Fernando Torres, who is actually quite good at scoring goals in football matches.

If my tactical shortfallings amount to letting the third best player in Europe have half a dozen chances in a match (Steven Gerrard and Xabi Alonso the others), whilst Jeremy Aliadiere (Long Shots 8) scores a 30-yard screamer with one of Boro's three chances to get a draw, OK.

I will look to bring in Cristiano Ronaldo and Leo Messi straight away. Hopefully with a front three of Torres, Messi and Ronaldo (maybe with Gerrard behind them if he can prove himself to be good enough) I can have as good a goals/chances ratio as Hull and West Brom.

Fingers crossed.

I only play one up front, which is Fernando Torres, who is actually quite good at scoring goals in football matches.

If my tactical shortfallings amount to letting the third best player in Europe have half a dozen chances in a match (Steven Gerrard and Xabi Alonso the others), whilst Jeremy Aliadiere (Long Shots 8) scores a 30-yard screamer with one of Boro's three chances to get a draw, OK.

I will look to bring in Cristiano Ronaldo and Leo Messi straight away. Hopefully with a front three of Torres, Messi and Ronaldo (maybe with Gerrard behind them if he can prove himself to be good enough) I can have as good a goals/chances ratio as Hull and West Brom.

Fingers crossed.

*BOOM*

Damn you, you broke my sarcasm detector.

Conversion of chances, is dependent on player, but equally dependent on tactics. You have to have both in order for it to work. Creative freedom, tempo etc etc can lead to players rushing chances, like I say there are many many reasons this could be happening.

If other people are scoring freely with their strikers/team, and you are not, the answer (unfortuantely) is "it's your tactics". Perhaps if everyone experienced the same problem it could be considered a game fault.

Interesting thread, this. Last week, this would have degenerated into silly insults and such.

I believe there is a definite problem with strikers. On FM08, they seemed to be too prolific. I don't expect everyone to agree with that, but I know a number of people, including myself, complained about some strikers scoring silly amounts of goals.

On FM09, it looks to me as if SI tried to tone this down, but perhaps it went a little too far. Now, even the best strikers struggling for goals.

Despite this, I'm still reall enjoying FM09.

FM08, strikers definately scored far too many. I haven't had any problems in 09 though, Luca Toni has 9 in 10 appearances for me.

I'm not arguing that sirdez24, and if you've read any of my 09 posts you'll know I feel the same, but the fact of the matter is that people have created successful tactics for 09 and it can be done. An inability to do so, or lack of time is our fault and not the games.

My point is in many ways it is the game's fault, as the match engine often appears to be so unresponsive to what you're actually doing tactically.

I've created successful tactics for 08 and 09, but at no point have I ever felt like I was completely in control of what I was doing, as opposed to just experimenting with sliders until I found a working combination randomly.

Conversion of chances, is dependent on player, but equally dependent on tactics. You have to have both in order for it to work. Creative freedom, tempo etc etc can lead to players rushing chances, like I say there are many many reasons this could be happening.

If other people are scoring freely with their strikers/team, and you are not, the answer (unfortuantely) is "it's your tactics". Perhaps if everyone experienced the same problem it could be considered a game fault.

I wish that were true. Unforttunately I had exactly the same problem last year, then the .2 fix came out, the game became a realistic simulation of football, and voila, the problem of needing three times more shots per goal than the opposition disappeared.

I wish it was something I could fix, cause then I would happily carry on playing the game, and make it better. But it's a bug. It makes the game unrealistic.

one thing i would really NOT like to happen is they make 50-goals-per-season-strikers again in next patch, with so many people moaning about strikers not being able to score.

what they need to do is to stop so many 1 on 1's happening in the first place. i really think this is a defensive problem not attacking. if all these chances were converted what would scores be like? it's the same thing as last year if i remember corectly.

keeper bug, defender just standing bug, full back's not marking the right players bug, too many long shots going in - banana bug, players dribbling down the flank instead of going direct on goal bug are things that need to be looked at imho.

Sirdez24, that's been true of the game for a long while now. You end up creating tactics to beat the ME rather than tactics you actually like, but in a way that's realistic, playing the kind of football you like doesn't always work and Arsenal this season are proving the point.

dannysheard, like I saiad earlier, if everyone was experiencing the same problem then i'd consider it a bug, but not everyone is and there have been people scoring freely, so it isn't a bug.

Mitja, i've often argued that it's not the amount of chances missed that is unrealistic, but the amount of chances created.

Interesting theory,I am a member of quite a few gamming forums as I play alot of different type of games and the 1 thing I have found is if the game is really fun then the forums are full of postive threads if it isnt fun the it is full of negative threads.

In the case of FM09 I have seen enough negative posts to suggest there is a problem and alot of players not enjoying it,blindly saying that the people enjoying are too busy to post about how much fun it is doesnt hold much water in my opinion.

Actually a lot of people that enjoy the game, even being registered here, dont come to this subforum because it is full of stupid boring posts like:

1- IT IS SO HARD TO NAVIGATE!!!! NOT INTUITIVE !!!!11 - Are you 5 years old?!

2- OMG I CANT WIN 1 MATCH. WTH IS WRONG!!!!! - ...

3- OMG I CANT BOTHER TO SET TACTICS FOR 10 MINUTES SO I WANNA WIN OTHER WAY!!!!! - I only change players position, dont mess around with the damn sliders and Im not having problems...

Some only browse around the Off-topic section or in the Challenges sub-forum.. Others dont even bother anymore because there are so many moaners that write completely useless posts that it gets boring.

There are a few posters that complain but write something useful.. but 90% dont...

by the way i think 09 ME is better than 08 allready, with the potential to be great.

the thing that annoys me the most are wingers' behaviour. it's happening year after year, i guess it's just very hard to replicate their movement in the game. if SI manages to get them more involved into the play - so they don't just stand there but make things like come deep for the ball, drift central, cut in..anything but stand there. if they could manage this and other things i wrote and couple of other things probably, this would be almost perfect ME for me.

I find it funny, the amount of people who will newly register to these forums purely to post once about how much they don't like the game.

You don't get people posting once going "wow, I'm so happy with this product, thank you ever so much!"

FM08, strikers definately scored far too many. I haven't had any problems in 09 though, Luca Toni has 9 in 10 appearances for me.

Don't get me wrong, I'm willing to accept that either my strikers or my tactics, or both, might just be crap. Although I did just win Serie A. Thank heavens for goalscoring midfielders!

The problem is, the people who don't think the game is fun are far more vocal than those who are busy having bags of fun with it.

I couldn't agree more

I have also played since the very early CM days and I think this is easily the best version yet.

The strikers issue is the only thing that bugs me but as Im doing OK anyway, not that much.