FM 2011 waaaay too easy, 100 unbeaten in the league

[milnerpoint]

And you changed the difficulty level how exactly?

start unemployed with sunday league footballer status, see how difficult it is not being able to attract good players to your 1000 seater stadium when no one knows who you are. it makes the game much more difficult.

[stonegate]

do you really need me to look up all the teams that have won the league 5 times in a row? It does happen more than you might think.

I was talking about the EPL and no one has won 5 in a row.

The game could really do with a difficultly setting so as to remove the constant it's too hard/easy that appears on this forum at least once a week

[lancer1]

I find FM11 a lot harder than the previous 3 versions. On FM09, I was winning the Quadruple every season with Man Utd, but on FM11, I struggle for 4th place.

What's the secret to FM11? Other than taking advantage of a broken transfer market?

[edgar555]

I was talking about the EPL and no one has won 5 in a row.

The game could really do with a difficultly setting so as to remove the constant it's too hard/easy that appears on this forum at least once a week

No it couldn't as pointed out below. Also as Miles said on the Q&A podcast, difficulty levels will never be introduced because (again look below) they are already there.

start unemployed with sunday league footballer status, see how difficult it is not being able to attract good players to your 1000 seater stadium when no one knows who you are. it makes the game much more difficult.

[afced7]

start unemployed with sunday league footballer status, see how difficult it is not being able to attract good players to your 1000 seater stadium when no one knows who you are. it makes the game much more difficult.

Yes but he said he 'has the game on hard'. And he's playing as Middlesborough, he didn't start unemployed. Please learn to read before you reply.

[milnerpoint]

Yes but he said he 'has the game on hard'. And he's playing as Middlesborough, he didn't start unemployed. Please learn to read before you reply.

i think maybe you need to read the thread again, he has started as man u not middlesborough and you cannot start a game as man u with a reputation of sunday league footballer. also i stated starting unemployed was harder so i think you really need to double check what your posting before hitting the reply button

[Wiitastic]

start off unemployed, also hows fmrte going ? he he but anyway, 100 unbeaten is ok I suppose, 100 wins in a row is a bit different.

[Wiitastic]

i think maybe you need to read the thread again, he has started as man u not middlesborough and you cannot start a game as man u with a reputation of sunday league footballer. also i stated starting unemployed was harder so i think you really need to double check what your posting before hitting the reply button

you can start the game as any experience you want and manage any nation or club you want, you could manage Barcelona with no experience.

[Wiitastic]

And I find it extremely difficult to believe that he's played 100+ games and never lost once. Cmon ..almost 3 seasons of being straight undefeated? Even as Boro, I've played teams that were so bad as far as players, their coach was about to be fired cause of performance and they just ripped me a new one in matches.

OP- can you provide an actual video showing you of having 100 games unbeaten? Not screenshots pls.

pretty hard to have a video of the 100 matches, almost impossible infact.

[milnerpoint]

you can start the game as any experience you want and manage any nation or club you want, you could manage Barcelona with no experience.

the lowest you can start if you choose a club like barca is professional player, try it and see, you cannot start a game as a major club with such a low reputation, you may be select it but it will automatically change according to the standard of league you have started in.

[Blue_magic]

i smell fmrte use! defo some reloading!

[lancer1]

Wigan gone 3 games without losing?! Bug!

[sthptngomad76]

The game IMO has got, as Tubey suggests, far too easy. YES it's still possible to lose and YES if you go as a weak side you wont win 100 in a row. But it seems as though, as Ive mentioned in a different thread, SI have turned their back on the tactical diehards who go through miniscule analysis to win games (as may have been the case in FM 07) in order to satisfy the vast majority whos short attention spans demand immediate gratification in the form of quick success.

Admittedly this is just IMO, and Im basing this simply on my own experiences plus those of a few other forum members, but this edition IS FAR EASIER than those previously, allowing success (like that of the OP) in a much more immediate scale with less effort.

[DSYoungEsq]

I think the biggest challenge comes from taking on a club after a manager has been sacked (probably in the middle leagues like L1/L2). The club is usually in a poor league position with awful morale and dire finances. Trying to sort all that mess out isn't easy.

Still having fun trying to get Oxford turned 'round, are ya?

[wwfan]

The game IMO has got, as Tubey suggests, far too easy. YES it's still possible to lose and YES if you go as a weak side you wont win 100 in a row. But it seems as though, as Ive mentioned in a different thread, SI have turned their back on the tactical diehards who go through miniscule analysis to win games (as may have been the case in FM 07) in order to satisfy the vast majority whos short attention spans demand immediate gratification in the form of quick success.

Admittedly this is just IMO, and Im basing this simply on my own experiences plus those of a few other forum members, but this edition IS FAR EASIER than those previously, allowing success (like that of the OP) in a much more immediate scale with less effort.

I doubt anyone is more tactically diehard than I am and I disagree with this. The focus is now on tactical and managerial decisions, not on slider tweaking, which is far more fun and dynamic. The need to understand micro-tweaking has been removed, which makes it a far better game in my opinion.

[dafuge]

Still having fun trying to get Oxford turned 'round, are ya?

I'm getting there, although I'm still under pressure

[Reffi]

Simple way to settle this really, has a modern PL team ever gone 100 games unbeaten in the league?

I don't think so, will it ever happen? I don't think so.

Therefore the game is clearly too easy/crap.

Fine logic?!

Has the Premier League been played a gazillion times like in FM? If it had I would pressume a club would have had an extremely good run. There will always be extreme examples on this forum, but don't use the extremes to make general conclusions.

[wriches]

I doubt anyone is more tactically diehard than I am and I disagree with this. The focus is now on tactical and managerial decisions, not on slider tweaking, which is far more fun and dynamic. The need to understand micro-tweaking has been removed, which makes it a far better game in my opinion.

+1

I can't imagine Fergie or Wenger shouting "waste 10% more time lads!" or "reduce width by 15% lads!"

[wriches]

Fine logic?!

Has the Premier League been played a gazillion times like in FM? If it had I would pressume a club would have had an extremely good run. There will always be extreme examples on this forum, but don't use the extremes to make general conclusions.

Exactly. And people with average seasons are much less likely to post on forums, so we don't get to hear from them as much.

It would be great for SI if some gameplay statistics were sent back to them, so they can see a spread of how well people do with particular teams. But some people would probably be against that. Could have an opt-out I suppose.

[Roman Chevalier]

People should be able to play as Utd and still have a challenge, because irl it would be a challenge managing them, despite always being near the top. Otherwise the game is just prejudice against playing in the top tiers.

Not everyone wants to manage in the Blue SP.

[dafuge]

People should be able to play as Utd and still have a challenge, because irl it would be a challenge managing them, despite always being near the top. Otherwise the game is just prejudice against playing in the top tiers.

Not everyone wants to manage in the Blue SP.

I usually fail miserably when I manage a club like Man Utd, just because I'm not really used to it. I actually find managing in the Blue Square leagues the easiest.

[Leeds_Leeds_Leeds!]

I doubt anyone is more tactically diehard than I am and I disagree with this. The focus is now on tactical and managerial decisions, not on slider tweaking, which is far more fun and dynamic. The need to understand micro-tweaking has been removed, which makes it a far better game in my opinion.

What?

So if you was 'slider tweaking' in the past the tactics weren't changing and you wasn't making managerial decisions?

What exactly were the sliders for then?

[Leeds_Leeds_Leeds!]

Fine logic?!

Has the Premier League been played a gazillion times like in FM? If it had I would pressume a club would have had an extremely good run. There will always be extreme examples on this forum, but don't use the extremes to make general conclusions.

So the fact that this has never happened in English football in over 100 years (not just PL as I said initially) isn't enough for you?

You may say it is a computer game and anything can happen, if you did say this then I would simply say SI are trying to make this as real as possible. If this is the case they are failing, in yet another department.

Don't see how you can argue frankly. Still you are concluding that if reall life leagues were played a gazillion times then this would happen, a slight assumption there. Seeing as I said it hasn't happened thus far, I think 100 years + is a good length of time to draw conclusions from.

[Bubblegumbo]

How stupid do you have to be to complain about how easy the game is with one of the top 3 teams in the world? OH HEY GUYS I CAN'T STOP WINNING WITH BARCA LMAO THE GAME IS FOR BABIES.

[duffy89]

The game is always going to seem much easier than real life, the reason being that in football manager you are omnipresent. You are able to view every player in the world at the click of a button and one can do so on a mathematical and statistical basis. In real life such attributes don't exist and decisions have to be made on pure judgement, rather than a comparison of attributes: X's attribute is higher than player Y's attribute , therefore he will perform better. The football manager world conforms to a set of attributes and figures, the real football world doesn't. Although SI have done a brilliant job of introducing as many factors as they can, in then end you can have control and success in the game as you can view and scrutinize everything that goes on.

I don't know if that makes sense...

EDIT: I still don't think the game is too easy by the way, but thats why I think it potentially could be

[jayahr]

The thing is that even with ManU you should not be able to be 100 games without losing without buying too many players.

The game will then be too easy with Accrington or whoever else is suggested as a challenge instead of the big clubs as well.

Those who suggest that should spend a second of thought before posting.

[milnerpoint]

The thing is that even with ManU you should not be able to be 100 games without losing without buying too many players.

The game will then be too easy with Accrington or whoever else is suggested as a challenge instead of the big clubs as well.

Those who suggest that should spend a second of thought before posting.

I dont see the comparison between being one of the best teams in the world to being one of the weakest in English football......There is no way unless you cheat you will go 100 games unbeaten in this game i dont care what anyone says, he reloaded several times.

[Markoos16]

pick dundee, they have -25 points and are on the verge of going bust, try getting out of that before 31st ddec!!! thats a challenge.

[Bruun]

haha, exactly my thoughts. 100 unbeaten is great. thumbs up. But you not sure who can be more challenging?

Dafuge Challenge as mentioned. or

Find a team with point deductions.

Find a team with no money. (not sure where though. )

Find an old team - aging squad.

Choose a league you have never played in. Play in Spain and don't be one of the big two.

Start unemployed.

Im sure the list can be longer.

Start in Denmark, pick the team Varde (Amateurs, worth 250k £ with no money) and goodluck getting them up..

[sthptngomad76]

I doubt anyone is more tactically diehard than I am and I disagree with this. The focus is now on tactical and managerial decisions, not on slider tweaking, which is far more fun and dynamic. The need to understand micro-tweaking has been removed, which makes it a far better game in my opinion.

But do you find it easier or more difficult than before wwfan?

[Roman Chevalier]

People who are saying manage this team or that team instead are missing the op's point.

The fact remains that managing a big club should be as much a challenge as BSP, only in different ways. No club wins CL titles every year, and no club goes on 30-50 game unbeaten runs. The game is really easy i have to say. All you have to do is familiarise the squad with a tactic and there you are. the AI clubs offer little in terms of attacking threat. I even tried using no defenders just to make it more interesting. Nope, still a decent premier league side couldnt score. Managing a lower league team may take longer to do this and that, but at the end of the day success is just an inevitability.

Almost finished with the game to be honest, some things you just outgrow. I don't know if the ai has been dumbed down or what, but there is no challenge in it. To reiterate, a player who wants a challenge in the top tiers should not be outcast, we don't have to want to play in BSN/S.

[edgar555]

People who are saying manage this team or that team instead are missing the op's point.

They aren't missing anyones point. Its always been said that the skill levels of this game are as stated in here, Easy: Man U, Barca etc to Hard: Lowest possible rep clubs in uber obscure leagues.

Sounds like you're over FM. It happens.

[sthptngomad76]

But still- WHY should users who select Man Utd have an automatically unchallenging game?

[dafuge]

But still- WHY should users who select Man Utd have an automatically unchallenging game?

It all depends on how they play. For me, taking on a job at Man Utd usually ends in disaster.

[StevoRobbo]

People who are saying manage this team or that team instead are missing the op's point.

The fact remains that managing a big club should be as much a challenge as BSP, only in different ways. No club wins CL titles every year, and no club goes on 30-50 game unbeaten runs. The game is really easy i have to say. All you have to do is familiarise the squad with a tactic and there you are. the AI clubs offer little in terms of attacking threat. I even tried using no defenders just to make it more interesting. Nope, still a decent premier league side couldnt score. Managing a lower league team may take longer to do this and that, but at the end of the day success is just an inevitability.

Almost finished with the game to be honest, some things you just outgrow. I don't know if the ai has been dumbed down or what, but there is no challenge in it. To reiterate, a player who wants a challenge in the top tiers should not be outcast, we don't have to want to play in BSN/S.

Didnt Arsenal go 49 league games unbeaten? And up until Tuesday night, Man Utd was 29 games unbeaten in all competitions and its fair to say had they played their proper team instead of reserves, they may well have won that and it would have been 30. I know its if's and buts but i dont see a 30 game unbeaten run as a impossible thing. Especially with a top club in many competitions often playing weaker teams in early round of cups and so on. 100 is a bit OTT (and I think from the SS that its only league games!) but 30-50 is possible.

[DSYoungEsq]

But still- WHY should users who select Man Utd have an automatically unchallenging game?

Depends on what they consider the challenge to be.

It's not out of the question that Manchester United could go on a game-winning spree in real life (though I, too, find the 100 games unbeaten claim a bit hard to swallow). It's been accomplished that a team has won the Premiership without loss of a game. But even if you manage to accumulate such a team, can you manage to manage such a team to successive Champion's League wins? Etc., etc.

It's VERY important to realize that this software is NOT a "game" in the strictest sense of that word. Rather, it's a "toy." The challenge is what you make it out to be.

[aderow]

Why not try and get a team in level 11 in the english league system promoted to the EPL and then win the lot - that will take some time.

http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/227320-RTC-s-English-National-League-System-Update-Taking-FM11-to-Level-11.

Do this. Take over greenwich borough fc. Should be challenging enough for you.

[wwfan]

But do you find it easier or more difficult than before wwfan?

About the same. I find it less frustrating tactically, but no harder or easier to do well than '09 or '10. Once you'd worked them out, '06-'08 were easier. Prior to '06, it was much easier.

[RubberDuck]

But still- WHY should users who select Man Utd have an automatically unchallenging game?

You're phrasing the question wrong. Or really, you're asking the wrong question.

Selecting Man United does not mean that the user has an automatically unchallenging game. When you select Man U as your team, you are given, along with the team, its advantages. In this case, large attendances, an excellent team, excellent facilities, excellent resources and excellent reputation, and therefore inherently will have a higher chance of achieving a result such as OP's than a team without these advantages.

So really, by selecting Man U, you have a team that is less challenging to play than other teams, but nevertheless has a certain difficulty along with it.

[milnerpoint]

But still- WHY should users who select Man Utd have an automatically unchallenging game?

they shouldnt, but choosing one of the best teams, with the best youth set up and the best coaches will always make this game easier. Its very easy to be succesful when everything is already in place for success.

*edit*

lol post above beat me too it!

[dafuge]

they shouldnt, but choosing one of the best teams, with the best youth set up and the best coaches will always make this game easier. Its very easy to be succesful when everything is already in place for success.

*edit*

lol post above beat me too it!

But the pressure is on to succeed, should you fail then you are likely to get the sack, and who wants to come on here and admit to that?

[wwfan]

What?

So if you was 'slider tweaking' in the past the tactics weren't changing and you wasn't making managerial decisions?

What exactly were the sliders for then?

You had to build multiple tactics if you wanted to play in the manner the TC enables. Even the most die-hard tactician wouldn't build more than 7 variations. The TC gives you those as standard, plus numerous tools to make them different still at the push of a mouse button. You can do all of these in reaction to match events.

The need to tweak sliders pretty much disabled this type of decision making. You could stop the game and tweak some mentality sliders or narrow the formation, but it was tedious and unrealistic. There were so many discussions about whether a player should be on 12 or 13 mentality, or width should be at 6 or 7. Now we talk about whether the AMC should be a Trequartista, Attacking Midfielder or Advanced Playmaker, whether we should try to retain possession or get the ball forward, play down the flanks or pump the ball forward, try to Control the game or play on the Counter. Deciding to do any of the above significantly alter matches in a way that slight slider changes didn't allow. For a user employing the old slider method to have as many tactical options as the TC enables, he'd have to build and save millions of different tactics. And people talk of the TC dumbing the game down!!!

[ArranoBeltza]

So i'm Man Utd

Well, there ya go!

But in all seriousness, you said you created one tactic and never change it. In all fairness, that's just fine- when you find a tactic that works for your team, there's no real reason to change it, despite what many people on these boards say. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

If you think it's to easy, try playing as another team, play in a lower league, or set restrictions on yourself as far as signings and such.

You had to build multiple tactics if you wanted to play in the manner the TC enables. Even the most die-hard tactician wouldn't build more than 7 variations. The TC gives you those as standard, plus numerous tools to make them different still at the push of a mouse button. You can do all of these in reaction to match events.

The need to tweak sliders pretty much disabled this type of decision making. You could stop the game and tweak some mentality sliders or narrow the formation, but it was tedious and unrealistic. There were so many discussions about whether a player should be on 12 or 13 mentality, or width should be at 6 or 7. Now we talk about whether the AMC should be a Trequartista, Attacking Midfielder or Advanced Playmaker, whether we should try to retain possession or get the ball forward, play down the flanks or pump the ball forward, try to Control the game or play on the Counter. Deciding to do any of the above significantly alter matches in a way that slight slider changes didn't allow. For a user employing the old slider method to have as many tactical options as the TC enables, he'd have to build and save millions of different tactics. And people talk of the TC dumbing the game down!!!

Well said. The new tactical setup and touchline shouts may be easier to do, but they're much more intuitive, more realistic, and actually allow for at least as much complexity without as much over-thinking involved.

[Svenc]

I have never seriously overachieved with any team in my FM careers. However, previously I found my job to be on the far too safe side to be true. In about twenty career seasons, I was sacked maybe once, and my contract wasn't expended maybe twice. Real life managers feel more heat than I do, but maybe I was lucky. But whilst van Gaal is under pressure whenever Bayern undergo a streak of four matches without I win, I could come in eighth in December and still felt safe. I wasn't even sacked when I finished a season with St. Pauli that saw me finishing dead-last, with three wins over the entire season. Apparently boards were much more manager-friendly than they are in reality. Let's see how this pans out in FM 11, a game looking fab so far.

Also, according to some players, there are far too obvious tricks to overload the wage budget given to you, and FM has a bit of a history of not punishing a manager making debt accordingly: Instead of a proper sim of licensing clauses, the board would randomly step in to fix the balance rather than unfixing you from your manager's chair.Transfer market issues are being talked about right now, but this screenshot shocked even me. Surely transfers like these were a no-go in previous versions. We're talking a freshly promoted Bundesliga side here with little reputation to speak of. And all of those players were available for free? It has never been that hard to snatch a good deal or two for lower league sides, as there are so many free agents in the game available to you. But this is something else.

[libbyshuss]

I think I'veprobably over-achieved in getting my Luton Town side promoted to the Premiership but I wish it was easier now I'm here. It's into December and I've won precisely 0 games! I'm stuck in the mire of low morale/bad luck and can't get out of it.

And snatching good free agents each off season was how I got here!

[Tubey84]

I doubt anyone is more tactically diehard than I am and I disagree with this. The focus is now on tactical and managerial decisions, not on slider tweaking, which is far more fun and dynamic. The need to understand micro-tweaking has been removed, which makes it a far better game in my opinion.

Oh come on now! You can't honestly believe that! Sure, the game is more "user friendly", but the game suffers for it.

What do you mean by the bolded part by the way? I'm fairly certain that my "tactical decision" of using a pre-set 4-4-2 isn't exactly fun or dynamic, and I don't think figuring out the correct media responses and making a substitution if someone is "looking complacent" being the only in-game thing you have to do as fun and dynamic either!

Once you have a "routine" now, you click around five times on various parts of the screen before a match, press Continue and know you're fully prepared for the game ahead. You then click another four or five times with the mouse during a match, and more often than not win.

This is the market SI are catering for at the moment:

I'm certainly not complaining that it's been easy so far. It's the opposite.

I'm quite happy that I can take Dorchester Town to PL in 7 season and most likely lead it to CL final in a few years. This is what makes it fun.

- xdaemon

That quote above pretty much sums it up for me.

I guess it depends what you mean by "fun". If fun is having victories handed to you on a plate, then it's fun. For me (by the way, three seasons in, fourteen defeats /in all competitions/ - correction: league defeats, three consecutive promotions and a scored-to-conceded ratio of 3 to 1 ALL with a pre-set 4-4-2, pressing "Continue to Match" every six minutes, as Blyth Spartans!), it's not fun. I've actually just deleted my game so I can have a fresh start when the patch hits actually.

The game should still be an entertaining management simulation, not a text-based FIFA11. Sure, I could try weird formations, impose a transfer wage cap on myself at bigger clubs, play a goalkeeper left wing etc. but that's not how I want to play. I want to be tested and have to challenge myself rather than have to deliberately screw up to create a challenge!

I'll have to say again though; I am by no means a tactical genius on this game. I literally do nothing. I just select a team and press continue, select a team talk, play the game, win, rinse and repeat... If I wanted a game I could win at constantly without trying I'd play myself at Connect 4!

[MickeyFelipe]

On fm09 i had 160 games without loosing with Barca. It's not that hard with a world class team, but the point is that it should be harder, both for world class team and for mid level teams. now i'm dinamo zagreb and i beat Inter Milan 3:0, Real M., Barca, Tott... I beat world class teams and my team is 17-20 yo youngsters with just a couple old guys like Biscan. If it were harder to do that the game would be more enjoyable.

[I Like Pie]

i had similar record with wootton bassett on fm10.. went through 10 leagues without any real challenge..

[urial]

So i'm Man Utd, i've created my own very basic formation and I never change it, it's the same every match.

The only players i've bought that get into my 1st team are Hazard and Adler.....but i've now gone 100 games unbeaten!

Just getting a bit boring now so not sure who to start with for more of a challenge?

(not sure how to upload photo?)

http://yfrog.com/71100notoutj

http://img253.imageshack.us/img253/1332/100notout.jpg

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

Ok I suck I am new to the game and started with Man Utd and since I have about 8 months till the start of the season I set up an friendly game and Lost. LOL.

[titon1875]

If the games that easy why am i struggling with tamworth?