Will the FM series ever introduce a 'difficulty' option?

[marklcfc]

Simply too much emphasis on assistant manager, teamtalks and tactics that never work and fm nowadays it so infuriating. I'd love to be able to sit down and play the game like the old CM and early FM days but it's just not possible. I don't even care if I lose now, in the old days I'd get so angry but it's just become so predictable, I know I'm going to lose a game before I've kicked off.

Assistant advice ****es me off, he always says wrong thing and is negative in press conferences, he told me to adapt two players games one time, and they came back and are disappointed that they've done it. Its meant to be realistic but what's the point in assistant manager getting things wrong? like saying I should change so and so's approach, doing so and upsetting them

There's too much surrounding the match and not enough of anything else. Don't want to do opposition instructions, team talk or anything, pontless. I want to sit down and manage my players,team, build a squad, I ENJOY looking for players to purchase, sell players that are not upto standard. It don't matter anymore, I can search for a player for hours, sign a player that the fans love but its not going to make ANY difference to my squad for a number of reasons, I'm not sitting there for hours trying to figure out the exact reason though, I've tried for the past 4 years.

Media conferences are rubbish too, if you can't be arsed with them you have to give them to your assistant, and he totally ****s them up

Its like staring at a spreadsheet at school, or like I'm still at work, and the assistant/meetings/match experience rubbish, they don't need it. If it didn't used to be Champ Man I honestly don't think it would be half as popular as it still is, living off it's past.

I took over a conference north side in the end, made all my players ABOVE 100 CA, and I still ended up in the bottom 6 12 games in, I'm finished till FM11 - always hoping the spark will return.

[charlo116]

You're missing the point of a difficulty system. Managing Man Utd shouldn't be easy - easier than managing, say, Burnley - but it shouldn't be easy. The game (without a difficulty setting) should still be a challenge no matter what team you are.

Say I choose 'Easy' - the point of the difficulty system would be to make it easy, even though it really shouldn't be. I might be the type of gamer who doesn't fancy a challenge, but that doesn't mean I only want to manage the top teams. A difficulty system would give me the freedom to still manage the lower teams and do well.

This isn't to say that I'm in favour of such a feature though.

Obviously they need to make changes but a difficulty system would never be the way to go. It would be better if SI made other top teams more competitive in the transfer market. For example instead of Man City buying my rejects for ridiculous amounts they should be targetting my star players and players that other top teams are after to match their real life ambition.

[flashback790]

I agree that SI have put to much emphasis on team talks, press conferences and micro management, they should have very little effect, but apart from that FM is brilliant.

Are these people who complain that the game is too hard just want SI to put in a WIN EVERY GAME option so they never lose.

[PoolFan]

Simply too much emphasis on assistant manager, teamtalks and tactics that never work and fm nowadays it so infuriating. I'd love to be able to sit down and play the game like the old CM and early FM days but it's just not possible. I don't even care if I lose now, in the old days I'd get so angry but it's just become so predictable, I know I'm going to lose a game before I've kicked off.

Assistant advice ****es me off, he always says wrong thing and is negative in press conferences, he told me to adapt two players games one time, and they came back and are disappointed that they've done it. Its meant to be realistic but what's the point in assistant manager getting things wrong? like saying I should change so and so's approach, doing so and upsetting them

There's too much surrounding the match and not enough of anything else. Don't want to do opposition instructions, team talk or anything, pontless. I want to sit down and manage my players,team, build a squad, I ENJOY looking for players to purchase, sell players that are not upto standard. It don't matter anymore, I can search for a player for hours, sign a player that the fans love but its not going to make ANY difference to my squad for a number of reasons, I'm not sitting there for hours trying to figure out the exact reason though, I've tried for the past 4 years.

Media conferences are rubbish too, if you can't be arsed with them you have to give them to your assistant, and he totally ****s them up

Its like staring at a spreadsheet at school, or like I'm still at work, and the assistant/meetings/match experience rubbish, they don't need it. If it didn't used to be Champ Man I honestly don't think it would be half as popular as it still is, living off it's past.

I took over a conference north side in the end, made all my players ABOVE 100 CA, and I still ended up in the bottom 6 12 games in, I'm finished till FM11 - always hoping the spark will return.

This is EXACTLY how I feel about the game and have done for a few years.

There is no point saying that FM is a realistic football simulation when it is obvious that there are MASSIVE grey areas surrounding the match engine and the game itself that nobody has any idea how they work.

Unless SI are willing to give fans a complete break down of how the match engine works and how all the components work together to form a result then the whole thing becomes just a series of uneducated guesses.

I recently spent sometime reading the FM Tactics bible which apparently explains how the engine works, how formations come together etc. This reads amazingly well but in my opinion is complete and utter tosh in terms of the actual game.

You only have to look at the number of people who use so called 'super tactics' to see how ineffective the player is to control results.

The old Champ Man games used to be fun, build a squad, try and wheel and deal, get the best players and off you go. FM these days just seems full of fluff which confuses the player so that eventually they have no idea why their team loses and how to go about fixing it.

[charlo116]

So basically you mean you're confused. I know there are other people that have the same opinion as you but to say that nobody knows how to work certain areas and that players get confused by fluff is ridiculous. I have had no problems with the game and although it can be improved its a lot better than you are claiming.

[PoolFan]

My main complaint is that the game is all smoke and mirrors. Without clear and concise information about how everything works, people are just blatantly talking rubbish when it comes to FM simulation of real life football.

SI have managed to release a game without giving any credible information how results are determined. Nobody really has any idea how teamtalks, morale, press interaction, formation, sideline shouts, wind, pitch size, stats etc all combine to form a result, its just lots and lots of speculation.

[charlo116]

My main complaint is that the game is all smoke and mirrors. Without clear and concise information about how everything works, people are just blatantly talking rubbish when it comes to FM simulation of real life football.

SI have managed to release a game without giving any credible information how results are determined. Nobody really has any idea how teamtalks, morale, press interaction, formation, sideline shouts, wind, pitch size, stats etc all combine to form a result, its just lots and lots of speculation.

I don't have a precise idea on how they all work but i know how my teamtalks work in building morale and what effect that has on my teams performances, same goes for press interaction and my tactics including the touchline shouts i use. It took some time to get that organised but you can't expect to jump in and just have the first things you try work out for you.

Besides you can't criticise the game for not being realistic and then demand they put in a difficulty setting, that just doesn't make sense.

[PoolFan]

I don't have a precise idea on how they all work but i know how my teamtalks work in building morale and what effect that has on my teams performances, same goes for press interaction and my tactics including the touchline shouts i use. It took some time to get that organised but you can't expect to jump in and just have the first things you try work out for you.

Besides you can't criticise the game for not being realistic and then demand they put in a difficulty setting, that just doesn't make sense.

How do you know what effect morale has on your team?

How do you know what effect press interaction has?

How do you know that sideline shouts have any effect on your results?

Why can I play the same game 5 times and get 5 completely different results?

Why can I be losing lots of games, switch to a 'super tactic' and all of a sudden my results are completely different, what happened to the morale and everything else?

As for the difficulty option, seems to me that the vast majority love to use 'super tactics' which in my mind make the game easier so why not introduce difficulty levels to begin with?

All I am saying is if SI want to tout FM as a football simulation then they need to come clean with exactly how everything works, because at the moment its all subjective and a LOT of random stuff. The core results engine should be based on your players and how you use them and NOT on a multiple choice answer or trying to decipher some bizarre conflicting feedback that the game gives you during a match.

[Vic Taylor]

It's funny how 90% of FM players seem to understand these aspects that you find so confusing and manage to handle the game fine.

I recommend reading up on the issues that confuse you.

[charlo116]

How do you know what effect morale has on your team?

How do you know what effect press interaction has?

How do you know that sideline shouts have any effect on your results?

Why can I play the same game 5 times and get 5 completely different results?

Why can I be losing lots of games, switch to a 'super tactic' and all of a sudden my results are completely different, what happened to the morale and everything else?

As for the difficulty option, seems to me that the vast majority love to use 'super tactics' which in my mind make the game easier so why not introduce difficulty levels to begin with?

All I am saying is if SI want to tout FM as a football simulation then they need to come clean with exactly how everything works, because at the moment its all subjective and a LOT of random stuff. The core results engine should be based on your players and how you use them and NOT on a multiple choice answer or trying to decipher some bizarre conflicting feedback that the game gives you during a match.

I know how morale affects my team and in what way, obviously high morale brings confidence and good results but it can also bring complacency, which is where team talks are very effective. I also know via my players personal screen what reaction they have had to any media comments. Also in matches i see the touchline shouts having a great effect, for example i often use 'exploit the flanks' and i see my players constantly passing the ball out wide and down the flanks.

If you hang around the tactics forum most people will be using super tactics but the vast majority of fm users don't, there are many fm users who don't even visit the forums and play the game without any help from any online communities, i know some people like that myself.

Feel free to keep claiming that its all random but it just seem sto me that you don't know what you're doing because you haven't bothered to try lots of changes in each area and just expect that one or two different tactics that you try should be brilliant or that signing a squad of world beaters makes you unbeatable.

[PoolFan]

It's funny how 90% of FM players seem to understand these aspects that you find so confusing and manage to handle the game fine.

I recommend reading up on the issues that confuse you.

90% huh lol.

You do know that 46.42% of facts are made up on the spot to support a argument

You only have to read the forums to see how confused people are with the match engine and how everything works. The shear amount of conflicting information is staggering.

[Vic Taylor]

90% huh lol.

You do know that 46.42% of facts are made up on the spot to support a argument

You only have to read the forums to see how confused people are with the match engine and how everything works. The shear amount of conflicting information is staggering.

The 90% is largely made up of players who don't come onto these forums, and therefore a) can't offer an opinion on the subject or b) find problems they didn't know existed in the first place.

The confusion you talk of most people on these forums wouldn't even know existed if they weren't on these forums in the first place.

[PoolFan]

All I am asking for is transparency, SI should come out with a clear and concise guide on how the results are generated and how everything ties together.

You never see in depth posts from the SI developers regarding the match engine, all you see is people speculating based on a huge amount of guess work.

[Vic Taylor]

SI will never explain how the ME works. That would just be stupid. Then their "competitors" could steal it.

[PoolFan]

SI will never explain how the ME works. That would just be stupid. Then their "competitors" could steal it.

I'm not talking about making the code open source or anything like that, I am talking about explaining how everything ties together in their mind.

How the hell can players be asked to make decisions if they dont explain how things work. It totally doesn't make sense.

As players we supposedly know what attributes are important for a particular position, yet why is it when I load a super tactic it doesn't even matter what attributes my players have,what their morale is, or anything else.

Like I said before, FAR to often in FM I get the impression that for all its supposed depth, it's all nothing more than smoke and mirrors.

[Vic Taylor]

If you don't want to accept an exact statistic, accept that a large number of FM players manage fine. If they manage fine, then it must be something wrong with your understanding. Read up on what you don't get.