Still too easy.... AI squad building still far too poor, and too easy to built human squad.

I always start the game in a lower tier of England, usually League 1 and work my way up.

Usually the game gets boring at a big club as its just far too easy, especially when you build long term projects.

It seems that the AI at top clubs just never seems to build top level squads and teams, and always dismantles any great teams the human player puts together. Although I will say, in FM14 its the best I've seen it so far, at least until I got down to a long term project at Liverpool where it seemed I was the able to pick up all the greatest youngsters and within 3-4 seasons I had 10 out the top 20 world stars in my team.

There are 3 main themes which seem to stop AI building top top teams:

1. AI does not seem to see the wonderkids so there is little competition if you want to spend your money hoarding the best future stars. And for human players its just far too easy - just hire some 20.20 scouts.

2. AI does not try hard enough to hold onto star players, or hard enough to sign star players to build truly great teams.

3. AI always lets a great team be disassembled as soon as human player leaves.

In my current game I was able to go to Juventus and win back to back European Cups, as soon as I left the club there was a fire sale.

I went to Bayern Munich (not won league in 4yrs), they gave me 250m£! which begged the question why the previous AI manager wasn't spending this money (they had 700m in the bank). So i bought 3 of my Juve spine, and a whole new team. Result - Uefa cup win, and 3 back to back European Cups.

Next I left for Chelsea as it was getting a bit easy at Bayern..... ofcourse they obliged and sold me 3 players (didnt have money for the rest). Won league in 1st season.

Then it was off to PSG, £250M budget, went and bought some of the players from Bayern, and Chelsea's best (a striker that scored 32 goals and 4 stars for only 25m), won European Cup.

And finally Liverpool called me back (having originally sacked me many yrs before), so here I got to work with a team that finished 4th. Signed old players and youth... won league in 3rd season, and won 3 out of 4 European Cups in next 4 seasons on a small budget.

Out of curiousity I got a ingame editor and found that my liverpool team with a squad worth £1billion has about 10 of the best 20 players currently, and probably 20 of the best 30 youngsters in the. So all i have to do now is each season sign teh best 16-18yr olds and thats it, unbeatable for ever.

If the next FM could provide a real challenge in your own squad building (scouts too accurate, especially with youngsters), squad retention ( too easy to keep players), and AI squad building (too passive in squad building/retention/youth recruitment), it would make for a hell of a game!!!

The bit about the youth expoit has been there too long, I always get to a point such as this where I restart and actually have to limit myself to 1 or 2 under 18 each yr just to make it difficult/fair between me and the AI, that shouldn't be the case.

Wondering if others finding the same issues?

Thanks!

You have to wonder why it's like this to begin with. Are the designers/developers more concerned with players who will not exactly be charmed by the resulting product? How difficult would it be to have multiple difficulties in FM to appeal to more people? You'd imagine this isn't the first time this pops up.

I setup my own challenges.

"If the next FM could provide a real challenge in your own squad building (scouts too accurate, especially with youngsters), squad retention ( too easy to keep players), and AI squad building (too passive in squad building/retention/youth recruitment), it would make for a hell of a game!!! "

I agree with OP.

You have to wonder why it's like this to begin with. Are the designers/developers more concerned with players who will not exactly be charmed by the resulting product? How difficult would it be to have multiple difficulties in FM to appeal to more people? You'd imagine this isn't the first time this pops up.

Actually it would be incredibly difficult. Unless you decided to cheat and use rubber banding, which they have no interest in doing.

You can make it harder if you want to. Hire awful scouts, ban yourself from buying wonderkids, enable attribute masking, limit yourself to domestic signings, etc. If the game is too easy when you do X, then stop doing X.

At the same time, yes, the computer teams are a bit lacking in team building skills. I do prefer this to the opposite scenario, where computer teams would be far too good at squad building, and all the good prospects were unattainable.

You can make it harder if you want to. Hire awful scouts, ban yourself from buying wonderkids, enable attribute masking, limit yourself to domestic signings, etc. If the game is too easy when you do X, then stop doing X.

At the same time, yes, the computer teams are a bit lacking in team building skills. I do prefer this to the opposite scenario, where computer teams would be far too good at squad building, and all the good prospects were unattainable.

The AI will always be a step behind. It gets better each year, but it's going to be tough getting anywhere near par with a human player without getting the AI to cheat.

Liverpool, Juve, FC Bayern, Chelsea, PSG and then Liverpool again.

Congrats and well done, but might I suggest trying it with a low rep club with a small stadium.

Liverpool, Juve, FC Bayern, Chelsea, PSG and then Liverpool again.

Congrats and well done, but might I suggest trying it with a low rep club with a small stadium.

^^^^^^^^^

The challenge in the game is in getting to the top where you can exploit things if you want. It's not in starting there and complaining that it's too easy.

In my 2018 Galatasaray save, Manchester City find a Japan kid, not from affiliated club, by scouting. Loaned him for one year, at the age of 21, he was a global superstar; won the Golden Ball award in 2018 Russia.

After that Pellegrini retired, Mancini assigned, who completely screwed the team, 5 consecutive Premier League winner just finished 9.

During this year, Liverpool spended 70 m£ without selling any of their global superstars, Suarez, Sterling, etc.

Now Arsenal spends a considerable amount of money to build up their squad. I'll see what happens.

So what I'm saying is that it must be depend on the AI manager's spesific attributes. Some men just don't wanna spend, while others make flop signings. You can use a real-time editor to see those attributes.

^^^^^^^^^

The challenge in the game is in getting to the top where you can exploit things if you want. It's not in starting there and complaining that it's too easy.

That's what he said in the OP. He usually starts the game in League 1 and works his way up. But if you were to start at the top, it gets way too easy unless you were to take on a challenge, like U-23 players or domestic players only.

IRL, you can't just buy the best players and win everything - look at Real Madrid, it took them 12 years and over £1 billion to win another Champions League.

Yeah but I've tried winning the Champions League with Partizan Belgrade in every edition of this game since the dawn of time (I lie, only started playing at CM4) and I have never succeeded.

My friend did it quite easily on FM05 I think but I was a noob back then. I think on the current version it's quite difficult because even though I dominate the domestic league, trying to compete with the best teams in Europe when you play in a low rep league is hard. Keeping players happy is very hard. they all want to go to the big clubs that keep asking for them.

Eventually, you reach a plateau and moving forward becomes a struggle. I've won the Europa League (FM10), but even that seems impossible on FM14! Starting in the sixth tier of England I've found it easier to reach dizzying heights, because obviously you can build a squad better than AI but you're playing in the highest rep league in the world....so I'm curious if people like the OP think that it's equally easy to win the Champions League with teams from low rep countries in the long run. It might be, I might just not be very good!!

It took me several tries winning the Champions League with Oviedo after I took control of them in 2017 (5-year holiday) in the Second Division B. I'm in my 9th season now and it took three seasons to get promoted to the BBVA, and I think three or four more seasons to win the league.

This is the slowest success I have had in FM ever.

It looks like I'll get a new stadium in a couple of years, perhaps ready in 2028 or 29. I already have a 35000 size stadium, which is quite good! Taking an amateur team with 3000 seats to the top will probably take an enormous amount of seasons, given the economic limitations. The rise of fandom to Oviedo has been slow, and it almost seems like it is limited by the size of the town. Previous versions would see a rise of 5-6000 new fans every year - now it is around 1000.

The game is definitely not as easy as it has been. It should be easy with Bayern and Juventus! It is rather hard with smaller clubs, and I must say that Oviedo is not a "minnow". They have good potential, but came into harder times and were saved by me. I'll call that a medium challenge. I don't have the patience for the really hard challenges. A Skrill side will stop in The Championship almost "forever".

Put some restrictions on yourself or play in a tougher league.

I'm currently playing in the Uzbek Oliy League and it has a restriction of four foreigners in the whole squad. Challenging using mostly poor Uzbek players, when the Asian Champions League squad also allows for only 3 non-asian foreigners.

You can make it harder if you want to. Hire awful scouts, ban yourself from buying wonderkids, enable attribute masking, limit yourself to domestic signings, etc. If the game is too easy when you do X, then stop doing X.

I don't see why we should sabotage our own career to make up for the game's shortcomings...

In the past, AI was heavily criticized for wasting truckloads of money on players they didn't need, to the point the likes of Real and Man Utd had 6 world class strikers (while playing a 4-2-3-1 formation) or signed some top wingers despite playing a wingless formation.

People rightfully complained, and SI duly toned it down. Too bad they just overmedicated the issue and we've had FM versions where the transfer market is staler than last week's bread.

I think the whole PA+Reputation thing has run its course and should be completely reworked (or done away with altogether). In-game performances should matter more... That's what creates much of the transfers in real life...

A good season and boom, better clubs are interested. A poor stint at the Top and your value is halved (and nobody wants you).

In FM that simply doesn't happen... Every nation/division/club has a CA-PA-Reputation bracket, so players below that will never be considered, and players above it will always refuse a move there.

Therefore the game is either forced to churn out tons of ready-made hot prospects (because AI sucks at developing a so-so players, and late blooming is impossible due to age-PA growth limitations) or most clubs are likely to hold on to their best players because the replacements are scarce.

The market is stuck in a loop... Top Club A can't pull a PSG or a Chelsea because they can't get rid of their old players. That's the reason after a couple of seasons you can basically build a Cl winning team with free transfers only.

AI managers aren't proactive enough and will just buy high PA players if the new one is better than the old, regardless of how they've been performing.

In fairness I don't have a viable solution to that... Performance should count for more, but as long as the match ratings are so unbalanced and convoluted, it's going to be even more tricky than it is now...

I don't know. Big clubs with unlimited resources like PSG and all the big EPL clubs are good at building up their squads. Of course they spend like 100 to 250 million dollars in transfers per year to do so. But still...

Any league with limited resources like the Scottish leagues and the lower english leagues are really no challenge long term to the human player. Huge clubs like Barca and Real Madrid still provide some resistance to winning everything.

Should managing a top club be easier than a small one?Managing the ego's and expectations of the big club should be harder than a small one.Should the coaching and tactical side be more difficult or relevant lower down the leagues as the players are not the finished article or as talented as a top club's?

Would Mourhinio find it easier to manage Chelsea than Barnet.

How can FM implement the real world of Football where a Club rising from Conf N/S to Championship is extremely rare let alone CL?Their should be far more poaching of a Club's young talent by larger Club's with more agent influence and AI to ensure his client is going to push for a move or an unaffordable contract to force a move before the end of his contract,this preventing non-AI managers keeping on to talent by asking for unrealistic transfer fees.

Could FM develop or implement a Managers personality trait's so that certain Players,Chairman etc will never get along with you just as it can in real life.Some Players never fit a Managers criteria Juan Mata Mourhinio eg.Or could we get Chairman to take more money out of a Club if their in profit preventing managers stockpiling cash or telling a manager he should buy and play so and so player.

The question is how close to RL can FM get without spoiling the fun of the lower league Managers rise to the top or an unknown Manager having absolutely no influence on the Players if he takes over a Big Club?.Could it become too hard and therefore not a game anymore?

Having spent over 2000 hours on the game, across around 15 different saves, and only having one Scottish League Cup triumph to show for it, I always baulk at the 'too easy' claims.

Mind you, in no save so far have I gone past 2019, and I'm almost always either a lower league side, or a team from a diddy country, so it's maybe not that surprising.

Don't AI clubs buy almost entirely on reputation and potential, rather than performance? It's been brought up a number of times on here, especially when you see the likes of Andre Gray, Jamie Vardy and Lee Gregory secure moves to Championship and L1 clubs based on being prolific in non league football. That just doesn't happen in the game, and it's very easy to move up the leagues by identifying good performers rather than high potential/reputation players.

It's also so easy to pick up quality free transfers, as they sit there in that abyss of not having a high enough reputation for clubs they would sign for, but not willing to go below a certain level in order to get football.

I exclusively play in the lower leagues so can't comment up the top, but it's very easy to build a strong squad in the lower leagues purely because of how the AI acts in the market.

Try starting with sunday league rep! I'm struggling to get out of skrill north after 3 seasons. Cant buy a playoff win

Try starting with sunday league rep! I'm struggling to get out of skrill north after 3 seasons. Cant buy a playoff win

I was lucky enough to win the Skrill South with Bath in the first season, but then after 5 straight seasons in the Skrill Premier, I eventually resigned after an atrocious 3-0 home defeat to Aldershot. I've now gone back to the Skrill South with Oxford City in that save to try again. *sighs*

Try starting with sunday league rep! I'm struggling to get out of skrill north after 3 seasons. Cant buy a playoff win

I've always found the Conference North/South really easy to get out of, the Premier is a lot harder but once you have made it into the Football League things become quite easy. If anything the AI squad building is even worse the lower down the league you go, those teams can't overcome the problems by just throwing money at it. If you get 10 years into the game you'll find the lower league clubs barely have any players, relying on youth players for around half their first team at the very lowest levels and even the worst off (financially) teams in the Championship struggle to have a decent sized first team.

Thanks for the replies, seems most people have similar ideas.

As i said at the start I always start lower league with sunday league footballer rep... aim is always to work my way up. I do find as some people have mentioned that in lower leagues it's the same issues on squad building. It is pretty easy to outmanover the AI in the transfer market (loans, free transfers etc.) , the march to the top seems to be limited on how small the team you inherit is.

On this occasion I started with Palace who were in League 1 (i let it autorun for a few seasons before starting just to mix things up), was in EPL within 3 seasons, hit European places in 2nd season.

What I really liked in this iteration was that after Palace i took Liverpool job (they finished 6th), but was sacked within 6months, having been midtable, then took over Everton and saved them from relegation in same season. That took me to Bayer Leverkusen , season and half in got sacked. Having spotted a pattern, I actually changed course from usual - stopped spending heavily on superstars of the future, and focussed more in securing my job - did that at Spurs, before moving to Juve - having took Spurs to 4th.

At this point it looked like this FM didn't have the flaws I thought previous versions had. But I think the issues were there, but I just hadn't lasted long enough at the bigger clubs to exploit it. At Juve I pretty much scooped up the talent i had previously identified and signed at my other clubs - AI happy enough to sell fairly cheap.

Probably the most annoying thing - is that going back to when I was at Palace - I could easily sign a host of free transfers of top notch quality as soon as I got into PL, and hold on to my good players even though big big teams were after them (Will Hughes, Jon Williams, James Rodriguez and few regens)... but as soon as I left they all left, and Palace promptly got relegated.

I understand that to keep FM fun, you may not want it to be as realistic and have your squad ripped apart... but maybe they could add a difficulty option for those of us who do? I mean , it really shouldn't be EASY to win Champions League no matter which team you are, there should be elite clubs trying to sign up the elite players. I agree that human will always outwit AI, but surely some of these things are not too hard to fix, if indeed they want to fix them?

Someone mentioned above that the PA/CA should be re-worked, and I think that would be great... it really should tie in with player performances, and just how many players at 17/18 who are supposedly stars actually go onto make it? Then there are late bloomers, its not all that clear cut, even Alex Pato - deemed to be a dead cert superstar of the future didn't quite make it. FM would be more exciting if every scout in the game didnt just hand you the same list of top 200 players.

You seem to have read the posts but missed the main point that was being suggested.

If you start at a very low reputation club and stay at that club, then when it comes to signing all these wonderkids and superstars you are disadvantaged because your club does not have the reputation, (and probably not the cash either), to just sign them like you do at your plethora of huge clubs.

More than that though, just getting to the Premiership/SerieA/LaLiga with this small club isn't the answer to your problems because you then onlu have a small stadium. If you are lucky then the boaed will be able to build a brand new stadium, and while this is great, it also costs money that you have to repay. Significantly, you will then not be able to build a 2nd new stadium fro 20/25 years and during this time all your competitors will be raking in cash that you can only dream of whule you struggle witha small capacity stadium that is probably only big enough for the division below. Worse than that, you also now can't improve it for a couple of decades.

Now your main point is that it's too easy, yet you give yourself the benefit of starting at a club 4 leagues off the bottom who were recently in the Premiership, (so were actually a HUGE League 1 club).

Try doing what you are doing with a smaller club. better still try doing it with a small club from a small Nation. At the moment you seem to be saying that it;s too easym but basically setting things up so that they are easy(ish) in the first place, and then making it easier still by joining the biggest clubs in the World.

These types of clubs are going to be competing for the Champions League with or without you.

I managed to get Staines from Skrill South to League 2 playoffs in 5 seasons, and failed there. Turning Pro once getting to League 2 increases all costs by at least double. Absolutely crippled by financial fair play rules which state that only 40-50% of the club's turnover can be spent on player wages. When your average attendance is 800-1000 in a 2500 seater stadium, enforced stadium expansion as you climb the leagues which destroy any bank balance you have with huge loans, you have zero cash coming in and therefore no wage budget. Selling players becomes mandatory to stop the club from going under.

Try a game from there and tell me it's easy. I've taken a job with FC Den Bosch in Dutch Jupiler League from there. Promoted to Eredivisie in 1st season, won Dutch Cup and qualified for Europe in 2nd season, win Dutch title in 3rd season. Money for European qualification took my bank balance from -200,000 to 8,000,000 overnight with another 8,000,000 profit each season after stadium expansion, facilities upgrades etc all paid for. Next season I will challenge strongly in Europe because of my new big transfer budget.

With money this game is easy; without it it's very hard indeed.

I was lucky enough to win the Skrill South with Bath in the first season, but then after 5 straight seasons in the Skrill Premier, I eventually resigned after an atrocious 3-0 home defeat to Aldershot. I've now gone back to the Skrill South with Oxford City in that save to try again. *sighs*

I think Skrill Premier was probably the hardest promotion for me to get. Such a grueling schedule. It took me 4 seasons to get promoted.

I can even give you a different comparison.

I have made San Marino into a big club. Once they are a big club though, they are still big club in big high profile/reputation league with a great big coefficient and the trappings that come with it. Every time I win Serie A I go straight through to the Group stages of the Champions League and everything seems pretty easy. Just about the only downside is that my stadium is limited to 45,000 and I have another however many years before there is even the chance of building a new one. Compare that to some of my rivals who are banging on the door of 100,000 at every home game.

Now though, imagine you are managing in the Welsh league. Yeah you can beat TNS every year now and you can even get past the first couple of round of Champions League qualifying, but as soon as you come up against a decent team, how do you cope? You are still Semi-Pro and fitness is an awful issue and you haven't got any money and you get about £2.50 for winning the Welsh league. Now you win the Champions League with that Welsh team and then tell us it is easy.

Or how about winning the World Cup with San Marino?

You see this game is difficult or as hard as you make it.

Now you win the Champions League with that Welsh team and then tell us it is easy.

Or how about winning the World Cup with San Marino?

You see this game is difficult or as hard as you make it.

International saves are another thing altogether. Fail a single international campaign and you're fairly likely to see the sack (once you're settled at a club you can stay their for a lifetime, whilst real managers last no longer than two and a half years on average at a club). No free agents and transfers in general to strengthen your squad, deal with what you are given. But glad you brought that up. Since as for club saves, depending on the country and league there is a certain ceiling that might dictate that going all the way and winning the CL straight would be impossible depending on which.

The point is that reaching that ceiling is of universal difficulty pretty much throughout. SI have held the stance that picking your club would be like choosing a level of difficulty. But whilst each save may have its own characteristics a little, some boards are a tad more trigger happy, the general perceived level of difficulty will be universal, whether you perceive it as "easy", "medium" or "hard". If you find it easy to strengthen your squad, you will do so at any club and fly through the leagues until you hit onto your limit, be it in Wales, San Marino or in England. This is partly transfer AI, but also because of boards/press/fans that let total newbie managers exchange entire squads (or sell starlets like Messi, Iniesta, etc. for free if the want) from their first day in the job, without any kind of serious flak. And unlike in real football, there is hardly ever a serious fallout between a manager and his squad, nor between a (new) board and the manager who may from time to time decide it'd be good to freshen things up by bringing in somebody new. The simple boards also apply for the AI naturally. Likewise the simple players' agenda: Atletico having to let go of its best players despite winning La Liga and reaching the CL final would never happen in FM. But coupled with a human player who is decent at bettering his squad (which is a linear procedure without massive ups and downs), once the human is settled (the first couple seasons are usually the hardest), he's settled for good.

But yeah, if you want it the hardest way, international management with a minnow is your way to go. For club saves, the level of difficulty is universal for anybody throughout. What differs is just a little your starting point and, depending on a league, there might be a plateau that dictates how far you could ultimately go. I'm also of the opinion that managing top squads should prove its own challenge, but in FM the better players you have the easier it becomes. Which is partly tied to you benefiting of your increasingly better player's skill that can to an extent make up for both mediocre man management and one-dimensional tactics, and them players rarely ever demanding much in return (WANT TO MOVE TO A BIGGER CLUB OR ELSE). Also pub wisdom may dictate that everyone and their donkey could win the Bundesliga with Bayern Munich and their squad of starlet internationals from all over the world, but FM is a bit taking the pish. This is a different generation, but ask Trapattoni about his Munich years what managing the big stars can be like: http://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2013/feb/18/bayern-munich-arsenal-superpower And under such prominent boards, even winning national doubles twice in succession for the first time in the club's history may not be enough if you have fallen out with said board, as in Fulham's current managers case when he was sacked by Bayern a couple seasons ago.

I think Skrill Premier was probably the hardest promotion for me to get. Such a grueling schedule. It took me 4 seasons to get promoted.

I think it's probably one of the hardest in the world. One auto promotion place and a mixture of part time and full time clubs. The amount of former league clubs that go down there and can't find their way back up is very telling.

I think it's probably one of the hardest in the world. One auto promotion place and a mixture of part time and full time clubs. The amount of former league clubs that go down there and can't find their way back up is very telling.

Agreed. Toughest league to get out of.

I've not played there myself, but there is also the Brazilian Third Division, which is supposed to somewhat dire to get out of.

Perhaps supporting the gist of this thread, in my experience, once you have managed for a few years, it's generally not that hard to get out of your division and start that climb up the ladder. More difficult this time, mind, as the tactics are more important, and more difficult to get right.

I always start the game in a lower tier of England, usually League 1 and work my way up.

Usually the game gets boring at a big club as its just far too easy, especially when you build long term projects.

It seems that the AI at top clubs just never seems to build top level squads and teams, and always dismantles any great teams the human player puts together. Although I will say, in FM14 its the best I've seen it so far, at least until I got down to a long term project at Liverpool where it seemed I was the able to pick up all the greatest youngsters and within 3-4 seasons I had 10 out the top 20 world stars in my team.

There are 3 main themes which seem to stop AI building top top teams:

1. AI does not seem to see the wonderkids so there is little competition if you want to spend your money hoarding the best future stars. And for human players its just far too easy - just hire some 20.20 scouts.

2. AI does not try hard enough to hold onto star players, or hard enough to sign star players to build truly great teams.

3. AI always lets a great team be disassembled as soon as human player leaves.

In my current game I was able to go to Juventus and win back to back European Cups, as soon as I left the club there was a fire sale.

I went to Bayern Munich (not won league in 4yrs), they gave me 250m£! which begged the question why the previous AI manager wasn't spending this money (they had 700m in the bank). So i bought 3 of my Juve spine, and a whole new team. Result - Uefa cup win, and 3 back to back European Cups.

Next I left for Chelsea as it was getting a bit easy at Bayern..... ofcourse they obliged and sold me 3 players (didnt have money for the rest). Won league in 1st season.

Then it was off to PSG, £250M budget, went and bought some of the players from Bayern, and Chelsea's best (a striker that scored 32 goals and 4 stars for only 25m), won European Cup.

And finally Liverpool called me back (having originally sacked me many yrs before), so here I got to work with a team that finished 4th. Signed old players and youth... won league in 3rd season, and won 3 out of 4 European Cups in next 4 seasons on a small budget.

Out of curiousity I got a ingame editor and found that my liverpool team with a squad worth £1billion has about 10 of the best 20 players currently, and probably 20 of the best 30 youngsters in the. So all i have to do now is each season sign teh best 16-18yr olds and thats it, unbeatable for ever.

If the next FM could provide a real challenge in your own squad building (scouts too accurate, especially with youngsters), squad retention ( too easy to keep players), and AI squad building (too passive in squad building/retention/youth recruitment), it would make for a hell of a game!!!

The bit about the youth expoit has been there too long, I always get to a point such as this where I restart and actually have to limit myself to 1 or 2 under 18 each yr just to make it difficult/fair between me and the AI, that shouldn't be the case.

Wondering if others finding the same issues?

Thanks!

This is a clear instance of constructive posting. Concise, concrete, and at face value compelling. A questionable and probably not very considerate response by a moderator along with a series of tangential defenses of the status quo that demonstrably miss the premise and are largely irrelevant shouldn't essentially be the fate this post meets. This is basic constructive posting. Worse, if higher-ups are relying on the judgment of others to bring up quality ideas from the community to their attention this thread amounts to a basic failure in the process. Despite how clear the first post is as far as I can tell its points are uncontested, barring one exceptional response that may not be doing too much in the big picture but is at least in the substantive ball park. The number of irrelevant posts is stunning and if you want to be harsher it's plainly disgraceful.

The point is that reaching that ceiling is of universal difficulty pretty much throughout. SI have held the stance that picking your club would be like choosing a level of difficulty.

Is it really so hard to see what might be wrong with this especially considering which clubs correspond to the lowest difficulty? I mean, really? Put your hands to your brains and swear you don't get it. Or perhaps we'd like to argue on the grounds of realism? The only question here is how many "iterations" it would take to reach the conclusion that Football Manager is neither realistic at lower levels nor at higher levels.

...What's the real issue here?

PS

The one exceptional positive/constructive response contradicts one of the points made in the first post. I don't think it's Svenc's.

...Why is this so hard?

Speaking of which, FM 2012 had a bug in the conversation history screen that was pretty insightful at times. The bug meant that, occasionally, you could track a player's latest very private conversation between him and his manager. Initially I had lots of fun tracking the progress of "problem kids" such as Arnautovic, who at some point would almost always argue with any of his AI managers.

Then I also discovered this:

The human player would try to sit it out, depending on the quality of the player. Like a "sunday league" rep manager who puts Xavi in the reserves on day one, and Xavi just going along to it, the player could eventually return to "green" status, and everything would be fine. The AI manager however would offer the player to clubs the same day the conversation would occur. I hadn't noticed this until this player was offered to me. Naturally, players being able to sit it all out without much of a fallout is what is wrong, not necessarily some AI managers trying to get rid of players who pose troublesome. AI managers are meant to behave "realistic", if you take a closer look, they might even storm straight out of a press conference at the top level. The human player opposing the AI managers looks to exploit everything he has available for maximum bang, and would never even consider storming out in fear of it rubbing off negatively on his squad of players. That will never change in any off-line save. Question is to which extents he should be able to do so, though.

So you start with a bug and end up reducing this topic to to what extent clever, and clever is all that you are here, human players should be allowed to exploit... everything, I guess? ...Am I misinterpreting what you posted? Here's a better idea. Instead of going the philosophical "human player vs AI" route we go down the "what problems the thread starter is identifying, what their validity is, what their solutions could be, basically how they would be "designed/implemented", and what the effect would be" route. Strangely enough the picture he paints is quite different from this, what I think is tripe. Refute/discredit the first post first, then give us the philosophical topic/overview/question that at this point seems to have little to do with anything. Hell, it might even vanish.

That written, you might be on to something in terms of why or how certain things can occur. But focus is being lost. Enough with the ridiculous, barely even abstract in some instances, glorifying of the human player vs the AI when none of you champions of the human race demonstrate any constructive engagement with this thread. Just... it's really getting irritating. I mean, I don't even know what's worse- just off-hand claiming that the human player is just superior to the AI... and something something, if anything more, or this thought that came out of nowhere. Seriously? I'm... at a loss of words. How did you even come up with that?

SRefute/discredit the first post first, then give us the philosophical topic/overview/question that at this point seems to have little to do with anything. Hell, it might even vanish.

If you had in any way followed the series, this is related to anything. It is also related to the opening post. SI's design philosophy has always been that the human manager is never made the centre piece of their footballing world, but a part of it, just like any AI. That is in parts why the tactical module looks quite different now, why you don't have bonafide set piece editors, but also why AI managers and their players interact with each other in much the same way - technically - a human manager would, which is, hopefully, illustrated with the above. This isn't "philosophical", this is how the game is being designed in terms of mechanics. This wasn't a post "pro human exploits". This was hopefully illustrating that there are things that clash with AI managers who are designed to behave "realistically", and human players not being forced hard enough to replicate at least somewhat likewise behavior!

Extending on that, if you take a look into the editor, there are traits edited for AI managers. Some of which, like Wenger, have a preference to sign younger players, all of them have tactical attributes that might interlink with their behavior on the transfer market. To which extent only SI could tell. That firstly shows that the transfer AI isn't all that "simple". But also that whilst this might produce somewhat realistic behavior, as a side-effect can limit their transfer targets from the get-go compared to the human, who would typically scout quite differently.

Okay... do you realize how distant your point is from anything? Ok, I get it. An AI would sell the player in that instance, although that isn't necessary to be that way as a response to the game not being quite as "realistic" to use your questionable words... so what? Why the tangent? Is that all you have to offer? The content of the first post doesn't speak more compellingly to you than this... crap? You really think these "exploits" or this AI behavior can't be changed? What, are you just assuming there will always be too wide of a gap? Why? On what basis?

"This was hopefully illustrating that there are things that clash with AI managers who are designed to behave "realistically", and human players not being forced hard enough to replicate likewise behavior!"

Well, there you go. One solution. The other, which I find preferable for say one difficulty or mode, is to have the AI behave like a human manager would in trying to sit the player. How much more is there to this behavior? You seem to put too much emphasis on what you find to be realism. One, it's questionable whether just selling the player is more realistic. Two, SI isn't just bound to having AI managers behave like this.

There are 3 main themes which seem to stop AI building top top teams:

1. AI does not seem to see the wonderkids so there is little competition if you want to spend your money hoarding the best future stars. And for human players its just far too easy - just hire some 20.20 scouts.

2. AI does not try hard enough to hold onto star players, or hard enough to sign star players to build truly great teams.

3. AI always lets a great team be disassembled as soon as human player leaves.

What is so insignificant about these three points that tangents are more worthwhile? Or what is so problematic or ineffective regarding making changes? Hard to see where you're coming from. For instance, the first point, that seems like a piece of cake, frankly. The thread makes it apparent it's quite significant and most experienced FM players should be well aware of the significance. Can get quite thorny, but that's in the process of dealing with things that emerge (scarcity of players is what I'm thinking), not pertaining to the difficulty of getting the AI to identify and pursue future stars. The human behavior in performing this task is on the simple side with the game already doing a lot of what is involved. Am I wrong?

SI's design philosophy has always been that the human manager is never made the centre piece of their footballing world, but a part of it, just like any AI.

Yet in practice the human manager is apart from it. Har har. This very thing can be changed.

Extending on that, if you take a look into the editor, there are traits edited for AI managers. Some of which, like Wenger, have a preference to sign younger players, all of them have tactical attributes that might interlink with their behavior on the transfer market. To which extent only SI could tell. That firstly shows that the transfer AI isn't all that "simple". But also that whilst this might produce somewhat realistic behavior, as a side-effect can limit their transfer targets from the get-go compared to the human, who would typically scout quite differently.

1) I'm unimpressed with this complexity you speak of.

2) Perhaps the conclusion should be that SI isn't doing well enough rather than there being something more fundamentally wrong?

2b) Does Wenger have a monopoly on the youth talent? When a human player ends up with most of the very best future stars (I might be understating this), what would explain the behavior of AI managers? Complexity? Fundamental difference? Too many of them being total dunces with regard to the future of their teams? That realistic? Is even Wenger doing well? Wenger can't be made to do better? The gap between Wenger and other managers (or clubs, let's be realistic) can't be made smaller? Where exactly does this not fall on SI, which is a good thing as that means things can be made better? Would be more realistic too. This is so simple even with half-terrible writing I can feel comfortable. Have I mentioned it would be more realistic? Or that I can't, rhetorically, think of what could be standing in the way of changing things? ...Not realism. Hardly AI difficulty either. That has to come from somewhere, and it's where you should transition to.

LOTs of good points in the original post.As AI squad building and management is so hard to improve (it seems) can we not just make it harder to find good players? Scouting is the easiest way to do this. The star system is ridiculously accurate and simple. Real life is not like this.Either... Make scouting a longer term exercise where it takes 10 or so games to get a recommendation and without all the accurate stats - just personality and average rating and a breadth of stats which won't be nailed on.OrDo away with scouting star reports all together.If we can't make the AI better stop making it so easy for us to find great players!

You really think these "exploits" or this AI behavior can't be changed?

If I did, I would have written such. I didn't though. All I offered was an analysis, or an attempt at it, of how the game is currently set up, and that it is evident that not merely SI's design, but SI's design philosophy is in parts at fault. In some cases it even contradicts the intent. I'm not convinced everyone is fully aware of that design. This was never a defense, no idea where you got that from.

Yet in practice the human manager is apart from it. Har har. This very thing can be changed.

Yes, it can. It could be quite easily. And it could be quite horribly too. In FM's game world clubs would barely if ever consider Virtually Unknown from Tahiti, for instance, regardless of talent, due to his low reputation, which is supposed to be a mechanics that represents he "has yet to prove himself at the bigger stage". This is all well and replicates somewhat realistic transfer behavior. Real Madrid doesn't pick up the completely unproven. Big players won't sign to small clubs. Every AI plays by that rule. Some AI plays to its own set of specific rules to an extent, such as Wenger. However, when the human player enters, things change. He makes up his own rules as he goes along. He doesn't care that Virtually Unknown has a reputation of less than x. He sees his talents and simply picks him up. He becomes The Special One SI never wanted the human player to be. That is where the problem is.

There's got to be some middle-ground. It can't be about simply making the AI managers super entities who just pick up any good player left and right, which would no doubt quite easy to implement. The key probably lies in SI to recognize that they can't force "realistic" behavior onto all their AI managers and then make the human players to disregard all those rules that apply to the AI so easily. In the case of the Virtually Unknown form Tahiti, it shouldn't be a case of the AI simply not considering due tue low reputation, but about the human player encouraged to do the same. Rather than it all boiling down to a reputation value though, there could be the danger of real doubt cast over a manager's regime if he picks up such a "risk" player and the player doesn't perform. Press, fans and the board actually would have to react rather than not even crying "foul" over the newbie manager putting Messi into Barca's reserve squad, as it the case now. Suddenly it's not a case of the AI not picking players up due to "arbitrary" numbers, but the whole process brought to a level that the player is forced to care about too. It isn't just transfers, though, see the AI press conferences. But naturally, unlike tactics in more subsequent releases (no FArrows anymore, lesser exploits), transfers are the most severely affected. Again, never claimed to have easy solutions to what obviously is no easy problem. Sorry to see the analysis not being up to your par though. How about you, anyway?

By the way, Svenc, to clarify something, the behavior of the player in your example is a factor too. The realism of the player behavior, for one, is a factor in any line of thinking. Unrealistic player behavior with a realistic AI manager behavior still puts the problem very much in SI's domain. If the player's status wouldn't change to green then the human player may find himself acting closer to the AI. If the player behavior is realistic, however, then how could the AI manager behavior be also realistic? What are the implications? The point being is your point itself is questionable and may point to a rather natural agreement between managerial behavior and what that behavior is in response to. You can't just take one side of it, call it realistic, and in so doing claim that SI is doing the right thing.

You can't just take one side of it, call it realistic, and in so doing claim that SI is doing the right thing.

The realism debate aside, which is a huge can of worms itself : I think we can at least agree that both parties, the AI managers as well as the human, would have to apply to the same standards, rather than both parties being - somewhat - removed from each other.

If I did, I would have written such. I didn't though. All I offered was an analysis, or an attempt at it, of how the game is currently set up, and that it is evident that not merely SI's design, but SI's design philosophy is in parts at fault. In some cases it even contradicts the intent. I'm not convinced everyone is fully aware of that design. This was never a defense, no idea where you got that from.

...

Yes, it can. It could be quite easily. And it could be quite horribly too. In FM's game world clubs would barely if ever consider Virtually Unknown from Tahiti, for instance, regardless of talent, due to his low reputation, which is supposed to be a mechanics that represents he "has yet to prove himself at the bigger stage". This is all well and replicates somewhat realistic transfer behavior. Real Madrid doesn't pick up the completely unproven. Big players won't sign to small clubs. Every AI plays by that rule. Some AI plays to its own set of specific rules to an extent, such as Wenger. However, when the human player enters, things change. He makes up his own rules as he goes along. He doesn't care that Virtually Unknown has a reputation of less than x. He sees his talents and simply picks him up. He becomes The Special One SI never wanted the human player to be. That is where the problem is.

There's got to be some middle-ground. It can't be about simply making the AI managers super entities who just pick up any good player left and right, which would no doubt quite easy to implement. The key probably lies in SI to recognize that they can't force "realistic" behavior onto all their AI managers and then make the human players to disregard all those rules that apply to the AI so easily. In the case of the Virtually Unknown form Tahiti, it shouldn't be a case of the AI simply not considering due tue low reputation, but about the human player encouraged to do the same. Rather than it all boiling down to a reputation value though, there could be the danger of real doubt cast over a manager's regime if he picks up such a "risk" player and the player doesn't perform. Press, fans and the board actually would have to react rather than not even crying "foul" over the newbie manager putting Messi into Barca's reserve squad, as it the case now. Suddenly it's not a case of the AI not picking players up due to "arbitrary" numbers, but the whole process brought to a level that the player is forced to care about too. It isn't just transfers, though, see the AI press conferences. But naturally, unlike tactics in more subsequent releases (no FArrows anymore, lesser exploits), transfers are the most severely affected. Again, never claimed to have easy solutions to what obviously is no easy problem. Sorry to see the analysis not being up to your par though. How about you, anyway?

I just can't keep up with the waffle considering what it's deviating from in the first post. I'm sorry for being like this when you strike me as a nice and reasonable person. There is no tenable "realistic" behavior in an unrealistic world. Just like a human manager it makes complete sense for Real Madrid's manager in FM to pick up the Tahiti player. Referring to AI managers as "super entities" for merely using their scouts and acting accordingly like human managers in FM reveals how confused you are yourself with how you're trying to reconcile reality with FM. Why in the world would SI display potential and yet "have never meant it to be" that a player would be picked up accordingly? You sure you aren't reading too much into something? So, there doesn't need to be any middle ground. You just need to adjust your lenses. You unnecessarily complicate things. If SI wants to complicate things like you do, fine. But in the meantime, your line of thought is nothing but detrimental for the game as you're mired in your conceptual conflicts. The game would greatly benefit from and make sense with AI teams scouting for and pursuing young players similar to what human managers do, at the very least in a separate difficulty or mode. If that is too unrealistic for you you need to pick a fight then. Whichever fight you choose, what should be clear is that the status quo is unacceptable. Personally, I'm fine with how potential works. Ironically in your line of thought you run into more trouble with complexity and consequences.

The realism debate aside, which is a huge can of worms itself : I think we can at least agree that both parties, the AI managers as well as the human, would have to apply to the same standards, rather than both parties being - somewhat - removed from each other.

Yea, I can agree with this. I'd be wary of just how similar the standard is and in turn just how similarly an AI manager would behave to a human manager as that could result in stifling the human manager but it's a decent way of putting what is emerging as a main point.

Don't give a potential rating on 'report card only' and make the potential on a scout report massively inaccurate until the scout has seen the player play at least at reserve team level.

Kids can look like world beaters until they actually try and step up a level.

Personally the scouting error stuff makes me almost ill but I could I guess see how that would be done well, although it should still reduce to an actionable level of confidence. Make it more of an achievement rather than a given. It's a strange balance and it's strange what we take out of it. Anyway, I'm off to bed. Nice talking to you.

One last thought. Low reputation? You sure this isn't a questionable SI construct too? How did Eto'o come about? I guess in reality players from smaller or lower reputation places take a less direct path? I was thinking the low reputation part could be about the relative number of talents popping up rather than I guess having trouble evaluating due to the strength of the competition and thus a Tahiti Real Madrid player would make sense and would even be realistic as there would be examples of few good players emerging from low reputation places and soon get picked up by much bigger clubs but I'm not sure what is realistic. And even the level of competition and development determines rel... off to bed.

One last thought. Low reputation? You sure this isn't a questionable SI construct too? How did Eto'o come about? I guess in reality players from smaller or lower reputation places take a less direct path? I was thinking the low reputation part could be about the relative number of talents popping up rather than I guess having trouble evaluating due to the strength of the competition and thus a Tahiti Real Madrid player would make sense and would even be realistic as there would be examples of few good players emerging from low reputation places and soon get picked up by much bigger clubs but I'm not sure what is realistic. And even the level of competition and development determines rel... off to bed.

I agree that the reputation system is a problem that needs to be fixed, but I can definitely see how "simple solutions" could make things even worse.

As it is now, players use reputation to determine which clubs they would like to play for. There is a "threshold" downwards, which prevents good players wanting to play for bad clubs. This also goes the other way around; the AI managers will look for players at bigger clubs or in bigger leagues but not put bids in if the player don't want to move, and they will not look much at lower levels because the players there are usually not good enough.

We as human managers, however, will look at a player wherever he is from and see that he could perform well for us, and sign him despite reputation being low.

If the restrictions are released for the AI, it could lead to total chaos - as the same system prevents players from wanting unrealistic transfers AND clubs from signing high-risk players. The same system that prevents Messi from signing for an Arabian Emirates club also prevents Real Madrid from signing the Lithunian top goalscorer of the year based on his performances.

The system is restrictive and it has its faults. For instance, a player that is not good enough for Real Madrid because he didn't develop quickly enough and is currently just a "decent player for most BBVA sides" at age 22 won't easily sign for newly-promoted Córdoba. Some will consider that, but many won't. Córdoba, wanting to get rid of its Adelente-level players, won't easily get rid of them because no BBVA-club wants them (of course) and they don't want to move to the Adelante.

How realistic is it that the Real Madrid-flop don't want to play for a small BBVA club and how realistic is it that Córdoba's lay-offs don't want to move down a level to get first-team football? I don't know. All I know is that a change to the reputation-system needs to be extremely well thought-out, because it is everywhere and affects everything from contract negotiations, player morale, player motivation, the job market, the "fan module", transfers, the economy, attendances and player interaction to AI manager tactical approach to matches.

We're talking about youths with potential. What is this performance crap over and over again? High risk players? Signing the Lithuanian top goalscorer based on performance? How is this relevant? I wasn't claiming anything about changing reputation, which has so far stricken me as more of a distraction.

I don't see why we should sabotage our own career to make up for the game's shortcomings...

In the past, AI was heavily criticized for wasting truckloads of money on players they didn't need, to the point the likes of Real and Man Utd had 6 world class strikers (while playing a 4-2-3-1 formation) or signed some top wingers despite playing a wingless formation.

People rightfully complained, and SI duly toned it down. Too bad they just overmedicated the issue and we've had FM versions where the transfer market is staler than last week's bread.

I think the whole PA+Reputation thing has run its course and should be completely reworked (or done away with altogether). In-game performances should matter more... That's what creates much of the transfers in real life...

A good season and boom, better clubs are interested. A poor stint at the Top and your value is halved (and nobody wants you).

In FM that simply doesn't happen... Every nation/division/club has a CA-PA-Reputation bracket, so players below that will never be considered, and players above it will always refuse a move there.

Therefore the game is either forced to churn out tons of ready-made hot prospects (because AI sucks at developing a so-so players, and late blooming is impossible due to age-PA growth limitations) or most clubs are likely to hold on to their best players because the replacements are scarce.

The market is stuck in a loop... Top Club A can't pull a PSG or a Chelsea because they can't get rid of their old players. That's the reason after a couple of seasons you can basically build a Cl winning team with free transfers only.

AI managers aren't proactive enough and will just buy high PA players if the new one is better than the old, regardless of how they've been performing.

In fairness I don't have a viable solution to that... Performance should count for more, but as long as the match ratings are so unbalanced and convoluted, it's going to be even more tricky than it is now...

This is just a ridiculous, half-thought tangent. Performance counting for more, and actually meaning more, is a whole can of worms and is not necessary for anything. It seems like this user is conflating his sense of reality with something going wrong in FM. Erm, yes, you would want AI managers to not buy players based on performance when performance is a composite or resulting quality rather than something necessarily meaningful about the player. The poster is mistakenly...

I think the whole PA+Reputation thing has run its course and should be completely reworked (or done away with altogether). In-game performances should matter more... That's what creates much of the transfers in real life...

A good season and boom, better clubs are interested. A poor stint at the Top and your value is halved (and nobody wants you).

In FM that simply doesn't happen... Every nation/division/club has a CA-PA-Reputation bracket, so players below that will never be considered, and players above it will always refuse a move there.

Therefore the game is either forced to churn out tons of ready-made hot prospects (because AI sucks at developing a so-so players, and late blooming is impossible due to age-PA growth limitations) or most clubs are likely to hold on to their best players because the replacements are scarce.

The market is stuck in a loop... Top Club A can't pull a PSG or a Chelsea because they can't get rid of their old players. That's the reason after a couple of seasons you can basically build a Cl winning team with free transfers only.

AI managers aren't proactive enough and will just buy high PA players if the new one is better than the old, regardless of how they've been performing.

The market is stuck in a loop... Top Club A can't pull a PSG or a Chelsea because they can't get rid of their old players. That's the reason after a couple of seasons you can basically build a Cl winning team with free transfers only.

AI managers aren't proactive enough and will just buy high PA players if the new one is better than the old, regardless of how they've been performing.

*mind blown*

We as human managers, however, will look at a player wherever he is from and see that he could perform well for us, and sign him despite reputation being low.

If the restrictions are released for the AI, it could lead to total chaos - as the same system prevents players from wanting unrealistic transfers AND clubs from signing high-risk players. The same system that prevents Messi from signing for an Arabian Emirates club also prevents Real Madrid from signing the Lithunian top goalscorer of the year based on his performances.

The system is restrictive and it has its faults. For instance, a player that is not good enough for Real Madrid because he didn't develop quickly enough and is currently just a "decent player for most BBVA sides" at age 22 won't easily sign for newly-promoted Córdoba. Some will consider that, but many won't. Córdoba, wanting to get rid of its Adelente-level players, won't easily get rid of them because no BBVA-club wants them (of course) and they don't want to move to the Adelante.

Either reputation is clunky, and more importantly, corresponds to God knows what, which you don't seem to be thinking of and just confuse things, or you don't really know what you're posting about. It's about potential, not "performance". Don't even misuse that word to mean potential. Doesn't matter if the Real Madrid player is not yet good enough at 22. If he won't become good enough is when you want him signing for Cordoba and reputation not getting in the way of that. There are also loans. What the hell is a high risk player in FM? Current ability is a factor too, not too complex of one and obviously would conditionally take much lower priority, which is why in conjunction Real Madrid would not sign the Lithuanian player. His current ability is probably not high enough, coupled with a relatively low ceiling, for Real Madrid to buy him and his performance is contextual and hence matters less. FM isn't "dynamic" like reality is where ability, potential, and performance are thornier things. Where do you people take this performance stuff from and why?

AI managers let you sign so much of the future global talent because of reputation?

Why is reputation being involved in this?

2. AI does not try hard enough to hold onto star players, or hard enough to sign star players to build truly great teams.

And what does reputation have to do with this? Star players in FM DO NOT EMERGE BASED ON PERFORMANCE... right? Unless reputation is out of wack with mostly potential granted there is a big gap between current ability and potential, or unless there are monsters skill-wise tearing up the Lithuanian league but reputation is out of wack with their current ability, what does reputation have to do with anything that actually matters?

Changing these things to make them more "realistic" is in the vein of Svenc's posting, which is an entirely different issue that doesn't impede what is going on here. Good luck with that, by the way. You guys seem scared of complexity in a topic where it doesn't apply, let alone if you actually had to pursue your own ideas head-on.

Every nation/division/club has a CA-PA-Reputation bracket, so players below that will never be considered, and players above it will always refuse a move there.

Is this it? So, assuming that a nation/division/club has a high enough reputation relative to another team, Real Madrid for instance, how does Real Madrid go about its business to evaluate and pursue its players? Would Real Madrid approach a relatively crappy player by its standards? If it wouldn't, what does reputation actually do aside from not allowing Real Madrid to make decent decisions based on the full pool of players? What's it doing in the game? What does reputation actually control or contain? Does Real Madrid make crappy decisions within its reputation band and reputation is there to keep Real Madrid's poor decision making contained? How bad is that decision making and why is it not availed of scouts and potential much better? Also, why would Real Madrid not make it clear to its crappy players that they have no future with the club and essentially force them to move out? Why does it seem like reputation is just getting in the way of things? Surely it must actually be doing something that makes sense under scrutiny?

Ent, Potential has no bearing on anything. It is a "non-entity" in the game itself, as the scouts don't get to know the PA. There's a Perceived Potential Ability (PPA) that informs the star ratings, and it is influenced by a lot of things.

Reputation, however, influences pretty much everything in the game...

I'm a casual player and the game isn't easy enough.

Way over complicated and no easy option so my cash stays in my pocket for FM15.