Should I just...quit FM?

[KingCanary]

I agree with those who say the game isn't actually that complex- I barely touch the training, don't do much in terms of individual pi's and never watch more than extended highlights and have found what feels like an enjoyable balance. 

Where it does struggle though is in the feedback to the players, particularly around tactics and during games. It can be frustrating to create tactics the make sense to me yet don't work without any real feedback. There is no testing ground, no training to see how it works and no real feedback from the game unless you want to force yourself to watch full matches. Similarly in game it's frustrating to have a spell of 20 minutes with no highlights and no feedback from your assistant as to what is happening. 

[Tony Wright 747]

10 hours ago, grade said:

I do well and learn everyday with FM and other games. It was due to Sensible Soccer that my interest in football began. But here is the rub, you say that the game isn't what I claim it is. Well I disagree with you. The game is what I claim to be. Now we have what is called a stand off. My opinion is not the law, but neither is yours. What to do now? Agree to disagree?

I started to play the game series since CM 2, which was released on the PC 1995, but only played at friends house on the amiga that was released 97, i think. I'm saying this because it is been 20 years (OH GOD... I now feel old), since i started to play this game series. It is more of addictiveness, then anything else. I make up excuses to buy the new version in hope that I would really like the new game. I really, really try to make the effort, but in the end the fun isn't there.

Also good luck try to install FM05, FM06 and FM07 on Windows 10 and Mac Sierra.

The issue, again is not about succeeding in the game. It is about the game feel more like a day job, the a video game that you play on your spare time. but if you are enjoying the game then i happy for you.

Again, you are focusing my opinion relays that me and my friends, don't win games, thus don't succeed, thus this game is too complex, thus we hate this game as is. No, i'm sorry, but that is not what i'm saying. Maybe I wasn't being clear enough. FM has grown to feel like a job. The grow complexity of this game, has become, too much to do with little reward. Sorry I don't see why all this effort I make during the season, with these 1001 new features and what not. At the end of a season, the reward is not there. At the end of the season I question where was the reward of all this effort and all of this hassle, that the game has put me in front of me. It is like these barriers that game puts in front of you and when you finish a season, the reward is not even a pat on the back and say (well done). It doesn't help starting a new season you go again back to square one and this time, you know the rewarding at the end of the season will be the same. You loose interest in press continue, you stop having fun with the game and start to feel like routine of day job. And I know my issue is not the rewarding part, because is the same level of rewarding as the old games. My issue is the growing complexity during the season, that each version of the game has added.

Again, I don't say my views is the law. I'm not Judge Dredd. If you enjoy the game Great, i'm happy for you, and you are free do disagree with me. If you agree with me well I'm happy to say i'm not alone in this. I simply share my opinion, that I'm not having fun with the game. I do feel disappointment (sad sounded way to Trump), that to some, my opinion is sort of an insult to them and the beloved game series.

Hi Grade

 

No I did not feel insulted by your opinions.  I have empathy with you that you cannot enjoy the game, and I would agree that you have to put more time into the game than in the past.  I guess I was lucky that my retirement came at the same time that FM became more complex.  For me that was a good thing because the game did somewhat take the place of my job.  It is my main hobby and takes up the majority of my down time.  If I was still working full time I certainly would not have the time to play the game in the way that I do, I would have to play one of the older versions or maybe have a look at FM touch, altthough to be honest I fired up FM12 the other day and found it more difficult to win matches on that than I do in FM16, but maybe that'sjust me.

 

I take your point about older versions not running on windows 10, I have a dedicated games machine running windows 7 (I have a laptop for other things and play FM offline) When I upgrade my computers I usually keep the old one, I still have one that runs windows 98, on which I play some older games.

 

I really hope yopu can overcome the problems you are having, and start to enjoy playong again

 

 

[Mitja]

shouldn't the Match be the main point of this game and not skipping season by season in no time? but I can understand the frustration with people who don't watch their games on 'full'. just like in real football the life is boring between two games.. 

 

[Svenc]

Re: Difficulty as such, when was the last difficulty poll? The largest and really only German FM community has one up, it's fairly evenly split between "just right" in terms of difficulty and "slightly too easy" at the moment. Options such as "too hard" or "much too easy" aren't really much taken, it wholly centers around those, with "just right" slightly edging it. The main sour grapes are transfer AI, and I agree. Realistically, if you want a harder long-term save, same as AI managers (or real managers mosly) tend to do, you should switch clubs when given good offers raterh than stay at a club forever too (Klopp from Mainz to Dortmund to Liverpool to ???). AI managers rightly aren't all coded to treat their clubs like life-time commitments as such. Still transfer AI currently is the main culprit... to exaggerate, long-term saves provided you don't see a sack (duh) are a bit like the grinding you do in MMOs. There may be a few ups and downs, but long- to mid-term you know there's one way: (level-) up. It's about persisting.

Expand the assistant managers to optionally fully (tactical) assistant manager, expand the Match Plans from FM Touch,and convert it for FM Classic too for those struggling ore getting annoyed with making the finer decisions, optionally enter a fantasy mode of play that boosts mediocre sides to immediately top levels (or vice versa), there's many ways of making AI more believable all the while keeping the game as accessible or as fantasy as they come. Matter of fact, FM is the only ever game I've ever played which you you could let play itself, even with the current level of assistant management. You don't need to commit overly much, and still eventually end up somewhere top. You couldn't even do that on On The Ball 1.

[knap]

Agree with Grade, gradually the game is losing the fantasy element and is becoming more tedious, and from the comments losing customer base as a result.

The user can make the game as easy or as hard (Academy Challenge for instance) as they like,

Building squads would  be main point of game, and  the database of players holds the game together . As for the match many are happy to use instant result.

 

[Bunkerossian]

Just now I'm struggling to interpret the myriad of stat tools in a way that would tell me what is wrong. I'm losing games in pre-season, but even with Comprehensive highlights mode and 2D view, I'm nowhere near being able to understand where are things going wrong.

[knap]

Heathxx always used to start with Man U to get a feel of the ME.

Have you tried a decent top club and a narrow formation just to get started.  If you like narrow diamonds use the tactic Herne set up in tactics forum.

[grade]

6 hours ago, Tony Wright 747 said:

Hi Grade

 

No I did not feel insulted by your opinions.  I have empathy with you that you cannot enjoy the game, and I would agree that you have to put more time into the game than in the past.  I guess I was lucky that my retirement came at the same time that FM became more complex.  For me that was a good thing because the game did somewhat take the place of my job.  It is my main hobby and takes up the majority of my down time.  If I was still working full time I certainly would not have the time to play the game in the way that I do, I would have to play one of the older versions or maybe have a look at FM touch, altthough to be honest I fired up FM12 the other day and found it more difficult to win matches on that than I do in FM16, but maybe that'sjust me.

 

I take your point about older versions not running on windows 10, I have a dedicated games machine running windows 7 (I have a laptop for other things and play FM offline) When I upgrade my computers I usually keep the old one, I still have one that runs windows 98, on which I play some older games.

 

I really hope yopu can overcome the problems you are having, and start to enjoy playong again

 

 

I really do hope so. The reason why a buy the new version every year is always with the hope, that that time will be different. I'm glad we can have this discussion, because that way, maybe, just maybe SI workforce can strike the right accord that balance game out that pleases both parties on this discussion.

For the old games, one side understand SI point of view of not making the old versions of FM available on Steam and they want to put people on their latest games instead of the old versions. On the other (my selfish and tantrum side), really wants to old versions to be available.

7 hours ago, Wavelberry said:

Also, FM Touch guys. Don't forget it's there and it solves a lot of the issues mentioned here.

FM Touch solves for me my issues with the full FM. The reason why i play FM instead of FM Touch, is lack of what I think is crucial feature, that without it, makes impossible to play. That feature is there is no editor for FM Touch. I don't play FM Touch without it, not because i'm expressing my anger no FM Touch editor, but rather I like to play a Champions League that includes all countries around the world (Dallan's version). Specially the inclusiveness of the FM Touch Editor is becoming more important due to stupidy UEFA is doing with the Champions league.

Aside from lack of editor ( SI instead of making another editor, try to include FM Touch database to the existing editor), FM Touch as another big problem, that is a lot of people think it is kiddys version. I try to tell my friends that it is not. One co-work the other day asked what is FM Touch. I explained to him, this is what he said. "I thought FM Touch was only for Ipad/tablet". I always felt it made more sense if FM Touch Ipad/tablet version had brand name difference with FM Touch PC/MAC Desktop/Laptop version. maybe FM Classic made more sense for PC/ mac Desktop/laptop version. But I'm going off topic, since that is another thread entirely.

[serif]

...Am I the only one who doesn't really understand what Svenc is saying half the time?

[Svenc]

19 hours ago, themadsheep2001 said:

The evolving nature of the game means some people will leave it behind, or perhaps be left behind, and others will take it up. Its difficult for it to be all things to all people. 

Interestingly, on a design principle front, nothing's much changed for a quarter of a century. What's changed is the scope of it all, which in parts simply changed as cell phones have more computing power than your 386 Dos PCs of the day. This was printed in "Football Manager Stole My Life" a couple years ago, one of the few books available that goes a bit "behind the scenes" (the On The Ball series had one also, though published and done in-house and supplemented with hint sections and stuff). It's basically what the guys shipped when they pitched the game that evenually was to be Championship Manager 1, Champ Man Zero, so to speak. There's talk about player roles before roles were a thing as such, AI managers, transfer routines, and all that. It's kind of spooky, this could ship with FM to this day. [I didn't scan this, took it from the free preview available on Amazon, so hopefully allowed to post to make that point.]



The key phrase for me is that "Surely it is important that such a crucial moment during gamplay is a result of [...] input (selection, style of play etc etc. ) rather than a throw of the dice? With the general feedback being another crucially area in general. As Bunkerossian has more recently outlined, he's given all these analysis tools, but no real manual at how to assess them. Whilst I thinkt their scope is limited in comparison to what a real manager has, that is also a point. It's not merely the generally difficulty. It's about understanding the fundamentals in the first place.

[serif]

The assistant manager and in-game feedback, by the way, is not only rudimentary but plain wrong too. Personally I don't find this to be an important aspect of the game but it is very not descriptive and sometimes the advice is nonsense. And contrary to what some have been claiming, a game can indeed cater to different people. Different modes are needed for that. The fact that there has been FM Lite and FM Touch is apparently filling that role now indicates the developers aren't as stubborn in fallaciously having one supposedly good simulation.

[Svenc]

48 minutes ago, serif said:

The assistant manager and in-game feedback, by the way, is not only rudimentary but plain wrong too.

It's in big parts based purely on simple stats that in isolation don't tell very much -- and when it's not it's oft fairly "Captain Obvious". Like a side getting outnumbered in the middle of the pitch, and the assistant going into fully-on panic mode: "We're getting overrun in midfield, boss!" Luckily, few of such advice says much about how the AI assistant manager would manage matches himself if you let him take over. If you didn't understand my previous post (sorry), I was making the point by the end of it that FM can optionally be one of the most casually games on the market, as outside of FM there are very few games out there that let you delegate almost everything you can engage in to little helpers coded into the game. This goes up up to the point that you would barely need to do a thing yourself, or even sit in front of your laptop/PC for a lot of the time, and still come out pretty fine.

The problem is that it probably isn't terribly rewarding at the moment, unless your fun comes mainly from building squads. Also, outside of FM Touch's fairly restricted assistant manager Match Plans (a feature exclusive to FM Touch), your further saying over assistant match management is limited. Which means there is still plenty room for striking all kinds of different balances on that front for all kinds of different players and their wants and needs. FM Touch isn't supposed to be "easy FM" as such, it's just getting that weird rep (ironically oft from the same people that deem the full release to be too "tedious"). SI have decided to make the mobile versions the "easy to pick up and play" kind of game, which suits such devices pretty fine. If you sit in front of a lap/PC, you're often at home and/or can be really committed at that time. If you're underway, a far more streamlined, simple experience makes sense. Some limitations of Touch mentioned by grade, such as it not allowing to play with edited databases, have never made much sense to me also.

[themadsheep2001]

59 minutes ago, serif said:

The assistant manager and in-game feedback, by the way, is not only rudimentary but plain wrong too. Personally I don't find this to be an important aspect of the game but it is very not descriptive and sometimes the advice is nonsense. And contrary to what some have been claiming, a game can indeed cater to different people. Different modes are needed for that. The fact that there has been FM Lite and FM Touch is apparently filling that role now indicates the developers aren't as stubborn in fallaciously having one supposedly good simulation.

I only speak of FM full fat, but I did mention FM Touch. When I say the game can't please everyone, I talk in the sense that the match engine and AI are still exactly the same in both 

[Goosewinkle]

 

9 hours ago, KingCanary said:

Where it does struggle though is in the feedback to the players, particularly around tactics and during games. It can be frustrating to create tactics the make sense to me yet don't work without any real feedback. There is no testing ground, no training to see how it works...

I don't think the game is too difficult, but I also think it's too complex, if that makes any sense.  It has too many switches and gizmos and gadgets that you can adjust, and it's too hard to tell what they do, if anything even (team talks, touchline team talks, match training focus, press conferences, tactical familiarity...).  

Like KingCanary says, there is a lack of feedback to the user.  Most of the feedback that does exist is in the form of assman advice, and the prevailing opinion on this forum is that it's usually best ignored.  And it's not informative anyway ("I think we should switch to long passes", umm ok why?  "I don't see so-and-so being able to switch the play to the opposite flank", umm ok why?)

I also agree that it would help to be able to test things out on a training ground.  It would be very illuminating.  I'd love to be able to see that my winger's crossing training is paying off, or that our set piece training is helping, or that my guys are confused by my tactics.  It's impossible to see this in matches where the opponent and circumstances change every week. 

[serif]

2 hours ago, Goosewinkle said:

I don't think the game is too difficult, but I also think it's too complex, if that makes any sense.  It has too many switches and gizmos and gadgets that you can adjust, and it's too hard to tell what they do, if anything even (team talks, touchline team talks, match training focus, press conferences, tactical familiarity...).

That's a weird list to make the point.