Difficulty Level on FM 2011

One of the main problems of previous fm versions which affected the logevity of the game, was that it was far too easy. Once, you make up a squad, complete of 4-5 transfer of younf wonderkids which is fairly easy( despite the fact that in the real world is very difficult to lure young supetalent becasue of the big clubs) you are off to world glory.

First year you get 2nd spot

Second year you are champion

3 year you are in CL semi-final

4,5,6th year you are CL winner

That is the pattern with any medium size club.

What is your opinion for fm 2011 based on the demo?

Has this changed?

Is the game more difficult and thus challenging?

Won't really know until we see the new regens - as that really can add or take away from the challenge. I've had a pop with Crawley town in the Blue Square Premier and I'm having variable results. 7 games unbeaten and then a month long spell where we picked up just 1 point. I think it's going to be harder, but it's difficult with just a quick save to go from. The leagues and players you load can always have a big effect on the game difficulty from the off.

Long-term observations are difficult to make in 6 months game time...

i agree in a way and hope the new regen template thingy helps other clubs challenge me in 10 years time.

The whole difficulty thing comes from who you choose to manage. You say 'buy 5 or 6 wonder kids'. To do that you still need at least 20 million in the bank and to be a Prem,La Liga, Serie A etc team. The difficulty comes when you choose to start as manager of Hereford or Bournemouth etc. We can all be Spurs, Liverpool, United and follow your formular. If it's too easy, make it harder for yourself.

One of the main problems of previous fm versions which affected the logevity of the game, was that it was far too easy. Once, you make up a squad, complete of 4-5 transfer of younf wonderkids which is fairly easy( despite the fact that in the real world is very difficult to lure young supetalent becasue of the big clubs) you are off to world glory.

First year you get 2nd spot

Second year you are champion

3 year you are in CL semi-final

4,5,6th year you are CL winner

That is the pattern with any medium size club.

What is your opinion for fm 2011 based on the demo?

Has this changed?

Is the game more difficult and thus challenging?

You appear to assume that Football = English Premier League.

Try a lower league team with financial problems - you can't buy players, you have to offload your high earners and accept offers for your best players, and you still can't balance the books.

That's challenging.

(by the way Sheffield Sunday, Crawley are hated for buying their way to success; they're the Man Citeh of the non-league. A challenge would be a semi-pro non-league outfit).

One of the main problems of previous fm versions which affected the logevity of the game, was that it was far too easy. Once, you make up a squad, complete of 4-5 transfer of younf wonderkids which is fairly easy( despite the fact that in the real world is very difficult to lure young supetalent becasue of the big clubs) you are off to world glory.

First year you get 2nd spot

Second year you are champion

3 year you are in CL semi-final

4,5,6th year you are CL winner

That is the pattern with any medium size club.

What is your opinion for fm 2011 based on the demo?

Has this changed?

Is the game more difficult and thus challenging?

Visit the lower league managers section of this forum follow their guidelines then u will never complain about it being to easy

Visit the lower league managers section of this forum follow their guidelines then u will never complain about it being to easy

So practically you are saying that the game should not be called Football Manager 2011 but lower league Football Manager 2011.

i would like to manage Barcelona, Real, Inter and still have a challenge as it happens in real life.

Have you seen any of these teams winning everything year in year out and signing everyone they want?

You're right you should be able to manage barca and have a challenge too, but they are just different challenges, such as at Chelsea the biggest challenge is replacing Drogba and Lampard after a few seasons.

If i manage a top club, then i don't go out an buy every wonderkid i can find. I may buy one or two, but you can make it harder for yourself at the top level.

Also, managing anything below a top/decent club is pretty hard.

Ipswich i took three seasons to get into the prem, another 3 fighting relegation and then came stability

Maybe you should try holidaying over a few seasons before you start. It sounds like you basically have you transfer targets set up before you even start playing with 100% certainty that they are going to be wonderkids and with a big enough club to pay for them.

So you start with the best team, already know the players who will be the best team in a few years of course its going to be easy. If you wait a few seasons so youre scouts have to go out and find the new players it might be a little trickier for you but still its not that hard, after all the expectation with a lot of these clubs is win the league and quarter/semi final of champions league so it doesn't take all that much to win it in game.

Surely with the new financial rules in place, it should be harder all around.

You're right you should be able to manage barca and have a challenge too, but they are just different challenges, such as at Chelsea the biggest challenge is replacing Drogba and Lampard after a few seasons.

If i manage a top club, then i don't go out an buy every wonderkid i can find. I may buy one or two, but you can make it harder for yourself at the top level.

Also, managing anything below a top/decent club is pretty hard.

Ipswich i took three seasons to get into the prem, another 3 fighting relegation and then came stability

I like to manage a top team (the only way i can get into a game) and i set myself the challenge of signing freebies or TLd players after the first window

First window being used to bring players in that suit my style and partially build for the future

Maybe you should try holidaying over a few seasons before you start. It sounds like you basically have you transfer targets set up before you even start playing with 100% certainty that they are going to be wonderkids and with a big enough club to pay for them.

So you start with the best team, already know the players who will be the best team in a few years of course its going to be easy. If you wait a few seasons so youre scouts have to go out and find the new players it might be a little trickier for you but still its not that hard, after all the expectation with a lot of these clubs is win the league and quarter/semi final of champions league so it doesn't take all that much to win it in game.

I'd agree with this as well. It's very easy for people to use forums such as this one to have a full set of future signings at the start of the game that are basically nailed to on to become world class players, so it can become very easy when you start the game knowing which 4-5 players to sign as wonderkids.

That's why I always start with a lower league club; by the time I get to the top league I'm having to look to regens for my future stars, and it's a lot harder to find wonderkid regens reliably (unless you use a scout programme/editor etc to see CA/PA figures, which I don't do myself.)

One of the main problems of previous fm versions which affected the logevity of the game, was that it was far too easy. Once, you make up a squad, complete of 4-5 transfer of younf wonderkids which is fairly easy( despite the fact that in the real world is very difficult to lure young supetalent becasue of the big clubs) you are off to world glory.

First year you get 2nd spot

Second year you are champion

3 year you are in CL semi-final

4,5,6th year you are CL winner

That is the pattern with any medium size club.

What is your opinion for fm 2011 based on the demo?

Has this changed?

Is the game more difficult and thus challenging?

Whilst a lot of people say start in the lower leagues to get a better challenge its more to do with how you approach the game.

Although I don't agree with all the rules in the LLM forum their general concept is realistic.

To make the game harder:

A) To get staff use the job centre and only approach the ones who apply - No using the staff search.

B) Although its been improved don't use the player search to find players, only use your scouts.

C) Don't download tactics or training create your own from scratch.

D) Don't sign players you know of in real life/previous save or have heard about off forums.

E) Don't use exploits.

F) Don't use third party applications.

G) Try different countries.

I'd agree with this as well. It's very easy for people to use forums such as this one to have a full set of future signings at the start of the game that are basically nailed to on to become world class players, so it can become very easy when you start the game knowing which 4-5 players to sign as wonderkids.

That's why I always start with a lower league club; by the time I get to the top league I'm having to look to regens for my future stars, and it's a lot harder to find wonderkid regens reliably (unless you use a scout programme/editor etc to see CA/PA figures, which I don't do myself.)

guys, the difficulty of the the game does not only have to fo with which players you buy. It has to do with AI too. Whatever players you buy still are 11 against 11. If you have 11 galcticos still you should face a challenge as in real life and not being able to win the title or CL season in, season out. They still have to blend, there still be teams that can mark your stars out of the game.

There still should be sides that would challenge and build up equally strong squads.

Barcelona, Real Madrid, Man U, inter are galacticos teams but are not winning everything year in year out

All these that you are mentioning are scenario-gaming.

You are saying that in order to

a) Why? This is a feature of the game

b) Why? This is a feature of the game

c) I do that

d) Why? The players goal should be to build a strong squad

e) I do not use

f) I do not use

g) Eyveryone is playing in 4-5 countries that enjoys most. What are you saying. To manage a team from India to have a challenge? This game is based on reality

So you are practically saying that I should de-activate many features of the game in order to make it difficult. OK. I would throw the dice from now on in order to decide the result of the games and I will keep the points in paper

I can't wait to try Football Manager 2011, but I sure hope the difficulty level has been taken a notch up.

I remember last year where I started out with FC Kobenhavn - I won my first 10-12 matches(!). I know this team is great, but back then it wasn't

LOL at people who play as top clubs moaning the game is too easy.

All these that you are mentioning are scenario-gaming.

You are saying that in order to

a) Why? This is a feature of the game

b) Why? This is a feature of the game

c) I do that

d) Why? The players goal should be to build a strong squad

e) I do not use

f) I do not use

g) Eyveryone is playing in 4-5 countries that enjoys most. What are you saying. To manage a team from India to have a challenge? This game is based on reality

So you are practically saying that I should de-activate many features of the game in order to make it difficult. OK. I would throw the dice from now on in order to decide the result of the games and I will keep the points in paper

with regards to points a +b u are just swapping one ingame feature with another so in a way you/we are ingnoring certain features.

The game is as easy or as hard as you want it to be. i play by LLM for a more difficult (and some might say Rewarding) challenge

All these that you are mentioning are scenario-gaming.

You are saying that in order to

a) Why? This is a feature of the game

b) Why? This is a feature of the game

c) I do that

d) Why? The players goal should be to build a strong squad

e) I do not use

f) I do not use

g) Eyveryone is playing in 4-5 countries that enjoys most. What are you saying. To manage a team from India to have a challenge? This game is based on reality

So you are practically saying that I should de-activate many features of the game in order to make it difficult. OK. I would throw the dice from now on in order to decide the result of the games and I will keep the points in paper

You complained that you found the game too easy so I suggested ways to make it more realistic & harder.

If you choose not to use those ways because "They are a feature" then thats your decision.

I think it's really down to AI management in FM11. They always seem to make horrible decisions and if they sell players for money they don't use the money to find a replacement. I don't like leaving clubs because my replacement always find a way to ruin the team in as little as 2 years.

I have to agree with the OP to a point. When managing the big clubs surely it should be harder than just signing a load of wonderkids then sitting back and waitin for it all to happen. I've found myself that when managing at the top end of the footballing world though i mix teams i manage up all the time is that after 5-8 years thes no one on the planet that can touch you. IRL this doesn'y happen as the's always other top clubs out there to challenge you. The thing is with this is the regens, in past FM series the AI just don't seem to have a clue.

I think it will be harder this year because of the agents, because if you have to pay the agents xxx amount of millions it means your budget is reduced. r

While I agree that you should be able to play as a top club and still face a challenge comparable to those which these clubs face irl, I resent the generic rant of the OP that the game is too easy.

It may be, but it would certainly be a lot more helpful to identify the factors in that.

- AI management could be better

- it's too easy to keep good players

These are the main issues in my opinion and it's absolutely fruitless to speculate about that before the game is out.

Please keep in mind however, when using players who you know are good in FM, then you do have an unrelistic advantage and FM couldn't do anything about that other than cheating against human user to balance this out. If I could beam myself into the 80ies, get myself hired at a club and sign all players who I know have developed into class players I'm sure I could turn any club into a world beater too if they let me.

LOL at people who play as top clubs moaning the game is too easy.

yeah should try managing dongjin shenyang from the chinese 1st division

seriously people the game is only easy if you pick man city or real madrid!!!!

Make it harder for yourself.

- Set attribute masking.

- Don't use the search feature other than for transfer listed players.

- Start your game with the no transfer budget button ticked in the first window.

Even so, I find it hard to find wonderkids from the off anyway. Others must be doing something different.

I have to agree with the OP to a point. When managing the big clubs surely it should be harder than just signing a load of wonderkids then sitting back and waitin for it all to happen.

Dunno about that. Take Avram Grant - a slip away from winning the Champions League with Chelski superstars. Since then all he can do is heroic relegation struggles.

But I don't have much sympathy for the OP - there are loads of ways to give yourself a decent challenge in FM, many of which have been suggested already.

For a longer term challenge with a 'top side' why not refuse to enter the transfer market and instead only bring through your academy youngsters? That way even if you do win everything in the first 4 or 5 years, you'll have to work hard on tactics and training to stay on top.

I think unless an AI team building template is introduced the same problem will always exist.

Id like a system where AI managers build squads based on their favoured formations, style of play and have the intelligence to consider average age of the squad.

The AI defiantly needs improvement & this becomes more apparent higher up the league structure however as many folk have already said the player can make FM as difficult or easy as they want while we all wait for the perfect AI which will no doubt be followed by numerous rants that the FM is too hard & that SI have forgotten that it is a game not a simulation.

I agree that with the demo it's hard to say if it's going to be too easy. I just finished off my 6 month stint with Leeds and found it hard to get the best out of the team and finished in 14th but i do agree that in the longer term it does become quite easy. I've noticed over the last few games that once your over the hump and won the league title and the champions league very few can challenge you and winning things becomes very routine without much of a challenge.

I'm hoping for more of a challenge this year and if the demo is anything to go by i may just get what i want.

I agree with the original poster.... after 20 seasons or so the game is a walk in the park and no I dont manage Liverpool, Man U etc... I manage AFC Wimbledon.

I love buying young players and as a result I can end up with serious talent who dont even play for the club - last season I took in 99m from selling fring players - better still, all or most have 50% sell on clauses too so the 99m is more or less 125m!

All this comes down to the Scouts who I think are too good and make the game too easy.

Does anyone have any idea at all how long term play goes in FM2011 vs FM2010? If not, then this is all speculation.

Clearly they've made some choices to improve long term play - dynamic league reputation, more sensible regens - if the AI's decision making for transfers has also improved, we're going to get a much better and challenging experience overall.

I agree that in long term saves the AI does make some poor decisions regarding transfers and that every team seems to play the same tactics after a while. However, as previously noted, they are plenty of ways to make it more challenging. If it's too easy you can always resign and start at another club. With the new dynamic reputations (if they work as expected), it will be a big challenge to take a mediocre team from Hungary/Slovenia/Belarus and turn them into a dominant force in Europe.

yeah, i mean, i'm a grimsby fan and was hoping to be in a league where we could finally succeed - but results vary massively. for example, i got hammered 6-1 away at darlington, which, lets face it, would never happen lol. it's going to be an interesting weekend when it comes out!!

Starting with a Premier team IMO kills the game.

Starting with a lower league one the game becomes brilliant.

I personally do not want a difficult game, I really used to enjoy playing the older versions where a plug-and-play tactic could see you do reasonbaly well. I don't have time to develop and evolve tactics, tweak my instructions to accomodate whoever I may be playing. This is making to game too serious and almost work like for me.

Now I know some people will love the way the game has evolved and I respect that 100%, I would love to see FM almost have a difficulty rating that could accomodate what I want and also what the stats heavy people would like.

Please don't flame this post, I can anticipate what some of the trolls on the forums will say. This is genuine and I'm sure I speak for a portion of the fan base who are becoming more alienated with every release.

I also think that the game is as hard as you make it to be.

But if you think about it a bit more, it shouldn't be so easy to win the league even as a top team.

I think we can all agree that when we manage top teams we usually end up winning by 15+ points. And once we win the league once in the game it's pretty easy to win it again and again. This doesn't really happen often in real life and I think there is a bit of balancing issue where complacency should take a bigger part in team performance.

Some like it easy, some like it hard.

Computer games are designed such that there's always some bias towards the user. Because if a game is seen as 'too hard' for the tonnes of amateur players who buy the game (and thus contribute to the coffers of the company) then they risk alienating them at the expense of the select few 'hardcore' users who want it to be a major challenge. This makes it difficult for them to retain buyers and players, especially for a series game like FM that comes out year after year.

There's always something you can do to make it harder for yourself, but not everyone wants to do that.

Try a pure realism journeyman game. Load as many leagues as you can, start unemployed and look for any clubs that will take you. Only use realistic features such as scouts to find players etc and eventually work your way to the top. Have to constantly change club and personally I find it a lot more fun.

Anost - Thats what I did on my fm10 career save. I started as a Sunday Leaguer managing Rochdale. I scouted a little myself of the major tournaments but left my signings to mostly what the scouts were bringing me.

It was a really fun game..but..it just gets easy. The longer the seasons go on the easier the game gets. I think thats what most are saying when complaining about the AI. I am fairly confident I can take any team to the top, not because I'm great at the game but because in time the AI justs gets dumber.

But then I guess the whole point of the game is to bring your crappy lower league team to the top.

If it took your championship team 5 seasons to even have a chance of being promoted I think pretty much no one would buy the game lol

This game is too damn hard. I get good teams and still don't know what to do. Creating a tatic is impossible! IMPOSSIBLE!

How to make FM more challenging:

1) change the date format. If you are american go with the European style and vice versa.

2) Play the game in a foreign currency. Preferably one you have never heard of or at least one with whose exchange rate you are unfamiliar. While you at it, switch back and forth from annual to weekly salaries every couple of weeks--that should keep you guessing.

3) Play the game in a foreign language. For a moderate challenge pick one you can partially understand like Portuguse if you are from Spain. Or Scottish if you are from England. For a real challenge pick a language you don't know at all like Chinese if you are from France or English if you are from Los Angeles.

4) Only hire scouts with level 1 skills at judging talent. Same for your assistant couch.

5) Don't spend your transfer budget. Save it to pay the owners a well deserved dividend.

6) Use one of those editors to reduce the CA and PA of all your best players. Then sell them off and buy new players. Then repeat. Soon the entire league will be enjoying more of a challenge.

7) Pick your three favorate names and only sign players with one of those names. I usually go with Wayne, John, and Hulk.

I hope my ideas have been helpful.

Redkraft

One of the main problems of previous fm versions which affected the logevity of the game, was that it was far too easy. Once, you make up a squad, complete of 4-5 transfer of younf wonderkids which is fairly easy( despite the fact that in the real world is very difficult to lure young supetalent becasue of the big clubs) you are off to world glory.

First year you get 2nd spot

Second year you are champion

3 year you are in CL semi-final

4,5,6th year you are CL winner

That is the pattern with any medium size club.

What is your opinion for fm 2011 based on the demo?

Has this changed?

Is the game more difficult and thus challenging?

The game is not more difficult, it's about the same.

Then again, I always play as Athletic Club Bilbao, so it's usually not quite as easy as your formula.

One of the main problems of previous fm versions which affected the logevity of the game, was that it was far too easy. Once, you make up a squad, complete of 4-5 transfer of younf wonderkids which is fairly easy( despite the fact that in the real world is very difficult to lure young supetalent becasue of the big clubs) you are off to world glory.

First year you get 2nd spot

Second year you are champion

3 year you are in CL semi-final

4,5,6th year you are CL winner

That is the pattern with any medium size club.

What is your opinion for fm 2011 based on the demo?

Has this changed?

Is the game more difficult and thus challenging?

I found FM2010 quite hard. Perhaps you would like to provide me with some tactics for FM2011?

In my opinion the game is built in a matter that doesn't limit your expectations from your team, maybe the game doesn't say to you "because last year you won all this year you need to win all again but under these conditions" this element you can add it yourself for your own enjoyment and also keep track of it. For example: You won 2 seasons in a row the EPL and the Champions League and you built a world class team try for you 3rd season to win the EPL with over 100 goal scored , under 15-20 conceded, have you players be the best in the league and have at least 5 players in the team of the year, win the CL by conceding under 5 goals, try and be the richest club in the world. Personally i haven't seen someone winning the EPL the CL all the english cups for 3-4 seasons in a row or more. The difficulty is present in the game but it depends on each player if he want's it or not.

One thing that works for me is to set a rule where every player I purchase are paid with 100% money up front. This makes the game harder on three levels:

- every signing has to be well thought out and considered. If I make a poor signing and want to sell the player after 12 months, then I've already paid for the full transfer and will be in a much more need to recoup the fee than if I had paid the transfer over 48 months.

- I can't vacuum the market for all the best young talents. If I'm given £20M to spend, then that buys me maybe 2 wonderkids, whereas if I had used my £20M to make transfers over 48 months then I could have bought at least 4 wonderkids. Hence, other top clubs are able to snap up some of these wonderkids before I do, and thus compete on a whole other level.

- my club's bank balance takes a direct hit when I purchase a player. As a result the percentage of transfer revenue being made available is immediately lowered to a more realistic value, making it impossible to overspend.

How to make FM more challenging:

1) change the date format. If you are american go with the European style and vice versa.

2) Play the game in a foreign currency. Preferably one you have never heard of or at least one with whose exchange rate you are unfamiliar. While you at it, switch back and forth from annual to weekly salaries every couple of weeks--that should keep you guessing.

3) Play the game in a foreign language. For a moderate challenge pick one you can partially understand like Portuguse if you are from Spain. Or Scottish if you are from England. For a real challenge pick a language you don't know at all like Chinese if you are from France or English if you are from Los Angeles.

4) Only hire scouts with level 1 skills at judging talent. Same for your assistant couch.

5) Don't spend your transfer budget. Save it to pay the owners a well deserved dividend.

6) Use one of those editors to reduce the CA and PA of all your best players. Then sell them off and buy new players. Then repeat. Soon the entire league will be enjoying more of a challenge.

7) Pick your three favorate names and only sign players with one of those names. I usually go with Wayne, John, and Hulk.

I hope my ideas have been helpful.

Redkraft

re 7) Hulk is a very good player. Go for another one for an even bigger challenge.

Very nice ones for the rest indeed

If Football Manager had difficultly options (Easy/Medium/Hard) it would ruin the fundamental mechanics of the game.

re 7) Hulk is a very good player. Go for another one for an even bigger challenge.

I think he means also buying regen's named Hulk!

Porto's Hulk is a great player, but what are the chances of a new Hulk being as good, unless you give other players the nickname Hulk