Well what can I say?? Please read and comment this it took me half an hour to write

I purchased FM09 pretty much 2 days after it came out, having been looking forward to this moment more than a kid does Christmas...

It soon came to my attention that the game had continued its elitist approach much like

FM08, which dare I say it, I sold cut price on eBay so I could purchase CM and actually enjoy a game instead of attacking keyboards and computer montors and yelling like I was at a real match, often resulting in either a headache, a sore throat or swollen fists. Needless to say as we approach a foreseeable recession I thought I'd cut down on my expenditure on super high dosage paracetemol (which were often consumed following a frustrating run in with FM09, followed by lying on my bed wallowing in my own self pity hand in hand with the feeling of being so cheap to have fallen for the glitz and glamour of FM09...yet again)

I have mapped out some KEY points to this game which bring on such sorrow.

Please take a look over them and give me your views and if possible some solutions! I'd really like to enjoy this game as I once did. (and no I don't want to win every cup or competition and dominate the world to a ridiculous level)

First of all.

I enjoyed a successful pre-season with FC Nurnberg scoring a grand total of 13 goals in 5 games. One of which was a 6-0 whopping.

My transfers were going nowhere however. I had Thomas Weiss on my hit list and managed to negotiate Hoffenheim to exchange a player they wanted of mine for him. My guy was euphoric to be able to have a chance of playing for Hoffenheim, I made an under budget contract offer, 8k short of what Weiss wanted...and he accepted, only for my guy to let me down and say a move to Hoffenheim wasn't right!! Sorry, where is the logic in that? Since then i mgiht add he has refused a loan offer from me, I can't afford a transfer and he has just signed a new contract. Great:thup:

Ahem...

So the season was rapidly approaching and I've been dumped out of the cup by a small local side, no big deal, its water off a ducks back to me personally. What I didn't appreciate were the 3 injuries to key players of mine right before the season starts. I started the first game of the season and just about beat a promotion rival 1-0, they plagued me all game with 80 yard passes from the GK, strikers quicker than lightning and hit the cross bar from long, long ranges many a time. I crawled out from behind my bed upon hearing the final whistle, I was shocked and elated to see we had won and there were no 'cheat' goals in the 90th and

95th minute to steal a victory from me. I foolishly thought to myself that maybe I had finally learnt how to play the game and got around the niggling hurdles that have haunted me since 2007's release.

Anyway a week followed and more injuries to my squad.

Thank you God, you complete @r$e

The next game holds the crutz of the problem. yet again more crazy passes from the opp's man between the sticks. Setting up their over-paced nicky no name striker to get past Igor Mitreski, Andreas Wolf and van der Kruis 3 times in just as many chances.

By 30 minutes I was 3-0 down and seething. That ever familiar frown had returned to my brow and I began writing down what I see as bugs in the game to bombard you all with on here, by the way if you've got this far then I thank you. There is a point to this, believe me.

I can't see for the life of me how to stop these events from happening. Please help.

My defenders are always out of position no matter what I order them to do. They are always beaten to the ball, clear the ball straight to the opp's playmaker or simply stroll towards the ball and trip over or something else completely pulled out of FM's a$$.

My midfielders tend to have a school boy aura about them, give them the ball and they'll shoot from 50 yards, totally ingoring those around you who are just begging for the ball.

Some of these shots have gone for throw-in's they are so awful.

My strikers can sprint the distance of the pitch following on from the opp's failed corner attack and when they get to the goal mouth put it over the bar or hit it straight at the big man, what is the deal here?

I have left out my goalkeepers as I have never had a problem with them, if they are left wide open and isolated by their team mates then I can't blame them for conceding a high tally of goals.

Just to finish off, that last match i spoke about I lost 5-0, at home, in front of my own fan's.

I havent even heard of this team. Now they will haunt my dreams.

Help a guy out.

I think this happens to all of us to a lesser or greater extent. I believe the main problem to be the tactic setup screen it's no longer capable of letting you play the way you want. you have always been able to pick players to match your prefered tatics and suceed. now this is very difficult and a very tedious. Also the fact that midfielders rarely peform and defenders tend to go for a quick cup of tea now and again does not help.

I still think this is the best FM by a long way for quite a while and I have had no problems with selling/giving away players.

Are you fully patched? I've hardly had any injuries since I started a new game on 9.2.0.

Have to admit, I sorta lost interest at "elitist approach". There's nothing elitist about it.

Take a look in the tactics forum and download a tactic then tweak it to fit your team. I found the game really hard to start with but once you get going its just the same as the rest. If you dont want to download a tactic then take a look at some of the guides that are in the forum as they can really help you out alot.

I find that once you get a decent tactic set its very important about who you sign there are alot of decent players you can get for under £1 million that can be sold for one hell of a profit after a couple of seasons to build your team up.

In my opinion decent team talks are also needed and very important. With FM09 you gotta stick to it and put in alot of effort but in the end it is worth it.

Do as AcidBurn suggests but also take a look at the posts by wwfan in the same forum. They offer lots of help with tactics in fm2009 which have change a bit from the previous game.

thanks gents. I'll give it a go.

nah iv tried and tested many types now, im still losing in the last minutes. im through with it quite frankly, SI I hope your reading this. you have pushed my loyalty into the arms of CM, I vow to never use this game again. if anyone wants to bu a copy for someone theres a dirt cheap one on ebay , just check out my alias on ebay.

SI you have failed and let a lot of people down f*** you.

You have tried and tested many types of tactics and suggestions from TTF in under half an hour? You must have a really fast computer there. I can barely play 2 games in 30 minutes.

There are loads of very good suggestions in the tactics forum and while I agree we shouldnt have to rely on a 3rd party guide to play a game I hardly think SI have failed us. There will always be people who feel let down by the game. But if you have a bad experience you tell 10 people about it.

The are a few we love FM threads on here the reason we dont see more is obivious to me. These people are enjoying the game, have no need to come here and moan about it, download tactics and have probably rftm from cover to cover.

We casual gamers can enjoy success on fm it just takes a little longer and some tweaking of tactics.

nah iv tried and tested many types now, im still losing in the last minutes. im through with it quite frankly, SI I hope your reading this. you have pushed my loyalty into the arms of CM, I vow to never use this game again. if anyone wants to bu a copy for someone theres a dirt cheap one on ebay , just check out my alias on ebay.

SI you have failed and let a lot of people down f*** you.

Geez, how childish are you? You're throwing in the towel and using foul language on the basis of losing to late goals? I very rarely lose to late goals. Still blame SI for your problem? Then it's because you're too lazy to even try and put it right. I find it very hard to believe that you've tried and tested many tactics, because if you had, this wouldn't be happening. You might want to take a look at HuwFlet's signature. Enjoy CM.

I lost interest at bought CM

I lost interest at bought CM

CM isn't even out yet. Unless you mean last season's.

If you keep switching your tactics, your team will be unsettled, and won't be able to gel properly. Stick with a plain and simple 4-4-2, and make small tweaks to it, but only if you really need to. After 6 or 7 matches, you should (hopefully) see an improvement.

If you keep switching your tactics, your team will be unsettled, and won't be able to gel properly. Stick with a plain and simple 4-4-2, and make small tweaks to it, but only if you really need to. After 6 or 7 matches, you should (hopefully) see an improvement.

That seems to be exactly what is working for me at the moment.

@topic

I feel with you.. I have the same frustrations at the moment.. I love this game and it's the only game I play on PC. However, I haven't played FM09 for 2 or 3 weeks now (and I still bother visiting FM forums every day). As you mentioned, it's all the small things that makes the game less funny for me at the moment. And of course the speed of the game. Since the beginning of January I have only 2-3 hours at home (Monday to Friday) - I simply cannot make room for FM while the game runs so slow !

I think your kind of missing the OP's point ..

DO you need to download a community guide to succesfully play WoW

Do you need to read a 50 page document to succesfully play GTA

The fact that a 50 page document, written by the community NOT the developers, is classed as essential reading to gain any kind of understanding about the game merely shows just how far out of touch SI have become

FM has lost it's intuitiveness, and tbh i doubt SI know how to rediscover it.

ps

the answer to both my questions is NO ....

I'm not who is classing it as essential reading. I've never read a single word of any tactical guides.

And other games are irrelevant. SI are under no obligations to make their game as easy as others. But in any case, you don't need to download anything or read anything to be successful.

DO you need to download a community guide to succesfully play WoW

Do you need to read a 50 page document to succesfully play GTA

The fact that a 50 page document, written by the community NOT the developers, is classed as essential reading to gain any kind of understanding about the game merely shows just how far out of touch SI have become

FM has lost it's intuitiveness, and tbh i doubt SI know how to rediscover it.

ps

the answer to both my questions is NO ....

Not the point.

It is not supposed to be a game in which you pick it off the shelf at Game, go home and win the champions league with Hucknall Town after a week. If it was, plenty of us would have stopped playing y now.

It is supposed to be an as accurate as possible simulation of the job of a football manager. It is supposed to provide a challenge and yes, you do need a certain amount of basic football knowledge to play it. The sort of knowledge that anyone interested in the series should have, really.

Whatever people may advise otherwise, to win a football match, you need to dominate passing and posession against the weaker teams. Against the stronger teams, you need to keep it about equal. Get a decent keeper, centre-halves with good heading, Jumping and strength, full backs with good Pace, tackling, marking and crossing, and wingers with decent pace, crossing and dribbling. You need midfielders with decent passing, but the strikers are who will get you the goals. Get a big striker with high heading, jumping and strength and a little striker with high pace, acceleration and finishing. Play big striker as a target man, and play a long passing game. This leads to unattractive but effective football. There, didn't require 50 pages did it?

FM is a fantastic game, which does indeed simulate the role surprisingly accurately, whereas i don't think that FIFAM and CM do. There are always going to be games when you batter the opponent, only for them to sneak a last minute goal to beat you. It happens, that's football. I can think of a game irl a couple of years ago when County battered Hereford, shots count 28 to 5. The result? 2-0 Hereford. If that happened in FM, the person would come straight onto the forums claiming that the AI cheats, the game is too difficult etc...

Quite simply, if you want an accurate simulation of a manager's job, Play FM. If you want a game which tries to do the job of FM, but fails, but still gives you loads of enjoyment (unrealistically) play CM. I guarentee you'll be back.

FM enfuriates me sometimes, but it would also enfuriate me if it didn't enfuriate me, as that would be unrealistic. If you get what i mean!

CM isn't even out yet. Unless you mean last season's.

He did say FM08 so he meant last seasons.

I don't know how many times I have said this let alone others, but you don't need to read any guide to be successful. You can be successful by playing simple tactics that get you by. In one of the other threads somebody won the SPL with Rangers with the default tactics so they do not make you drastically underachieve.

Fiddle with the tactics, set personal instructions, keep morale up, and actually be nice to your players... (sympathize remember, after every loss)

The game isn't as hard as it looks...