Discussion about game difficulty

[Tomor29]

Hello everyone,

I have a topic I would like to discuss with this community. I really love this game and am playing it since CM times. It´s really great and addictive. But I really believe that the game should be MUCH more difficult to play than it is. I am in a no way a tactical genius, actually I would say that I am pretty average in this area of play and usually create just one solid tactic with very limited in game chances or reactions on opponent´s strenghts. I do not like to manage big teams with the highest ambitions and big money, instead of it I prefer to build a club structure, develop players and bring my club to the top. So I always choose teams that are in some crisis, fallen giants, clubs in financial troubles or just an average teams with talents that have some big team rivals in the league. Never choose a team that is expecting an immediate success (win the title, get promoted etc.) rather teams that aren´t expecting that much in the first season.

I really like the atmosphere when you have some time to build your team and start process of a long term success. I would have no problem if it would take 5 or 10 seasons to achieve that, to bring an average or even lower divison club to the top and become one of the best of the league. But it always happens almost immediately and I lose my motivation then and try to find some new challenges but then it happens again and again. No matter which club or league I choose. This is achived just by human resources - I always invest mainly in my staff, coaches and scouts, improve club facilities and develop relationships with my players. After the first season it all gets too easy - scouts find top class talents, I have no problem to sign them, develop and make huge profit by selling them. It is too easy to bring good staff and players, people that in reality wouldn´t join such teams and only the biggest clubs could sign them. The transfer market is too easy to expose and make huge money there and become one of the richest clubs.

After a few seasons I finish with squad full of top class youngsters, that can dominate domestically and most of the biggest clubs are trying to buy them for big money. Last year I choose Kaiserslautern in German third league, I like the club and wanted to slowly bring them back to Bundesliga. I thought it will take several seasons before we get there but we managed back-to-back promotions and in the first season on the top tier finished second just behind Bayern, same as the next year. It may sound silly for some of you but this rapid progress took the pleasure out of my game for me as I really want to slowly build the club, go step-by-step, think twice about every signing and every euro paid and of course occasionally find a gem and make huge money on him. But this should happen once in a few years, instead of several times every season. And the same with AZ Alkmaar, Auxerre and many other teams this year. To limit this and make the progress slower I even implement various transfer policies to my teams - sign only domestic players/players from neighboring countries, only players of 18 or youngers, limit the number of transfers for every season, try to implement moneyball principles etc. but this is not realistic as clubs normally do not limit themself to make it harder for them and also it usually do not help to slower the progress too much. In the end I lose my motivation after 3-4 seasons when I achieve my goals and must start with a new club.

As I said I am not beating my rivals on the pitch, thanks my tactics but on the transfer market and the game allows it again and again. And this is my biggest problem with this lovely game as it really brings the joy from me and I believe most of the players must have similar experience. Sure, some of you may enjoy to become totally dominant club after several years and win trophies again and again but for me there is no room for improvements then. Also I find it highly unrealistic that many people have to play various challenges to make it harder for them, that many players can complete youth only challenge etc. and it only shows that the game should be much, much harder to play.

So what is your opinion on this topic? And also would you recommend me any team, any challenge that would allow me to play a long term save, to build a club, its infrastructure and slowly progress towards the top? Think twice about every euro paid, every signing, every step?

[rinso]

Try some of the challenges in the Challenges forum, limit yourself to signing certain players, impose restrictions on your save.. and don't use any external tools ( no idea if you do or  not, just saying)  or the in game editor.. or reload...  it doesnt matter if it's realistic or not, if it keeps you interested..  
maybe go on holiday for a good while, 20+ years, to get rid of all the "real" players in the game, and start a save then, when you have no idea or knowledge of the players available.. start with a completely blank slate

[FlorianAlbert9]

For my experience Is the hardest FM/CM i tried (from CM4). 

Usually i can stay always at the same club (usually Mtk in Hungary), building a team buying only U20 and i take 5 years (depends if the team was in first or second division) to dominate the nation. (Win in Europe It another story cause depends from how much inproved the league rep). 

In this edition i'm at 2036 i change 10 clubs at least never succeded to keep working at a club like past edition. 

Oh i think it's my fault 'cause i don't understand the ME of this year. 

I like playing with high lod and It Is always a 1vs1 party....

Plus if in the last edition with no club vision, club with money build up they structure and youth system, know seems that only the clubs that have that vision try to have better youth. So in poor nation, even if the league has increase in the top15 and club have money the young are very poor and big team ask (rightly) too much money (more the total value of my entire team for example) so i have to buy in reserve of lower division to have the request number of national in starting.  

[SpS_Zen]

You could try youth academy challenge. 

[chris31k]

You have the problem that every player has in every game. The AI is nowhere near the human intelligence. Playing against AI in fps, rts, civilization,etc...gets frustrating when you're getting good at it. And in those games you have difficulty levels. You can't have these in FM.

Unless AI makes good progress soon, it always will be quite easy to dominate in every game released with just some hours of practice.

I think you're right pointing the easyness of FM but the cause is a matter of technologic limitations, not FM conception.

[Bry]

I agree with the OP's sentiments. However, I think that a lot of us have grown up with a game that, while it has become a much more polished and in depth experience, hasn't changed a great deal in terms of how to 'beat' it and manipulate its mechanics. It's therefore no surprise that a lot of people have become very good at it and find it too easy. But I remember it took me years to become any good at it, and if SI made the game any harder it would likely turn off newcomers.

As an aside, IMO if FM was remotely realistic (it's a bit bonkers that some people think it is) and faithful to a real career arc, it wouldn't be much fun to play. The vast majority of managers stay at a club for barely more than a couple of seasons nowadays and have nowhere near the level of responsibility that FM affords. That being said, real managers have to conduct scores of menial tasks daily. Most clubs stay around the same level IRL, rattling between the same few divisions for years, even decades, on end.  All of this would be an absolute dirge to play and one may as well go get a FIFA badge and try it for real. But it's not a criticism. FM has to be unrealistic and focus on the romantic escapism of a once in a blue moon Eddie Howe-esque rise through the leagues with an underdog club. 

Edited February 2, 2020 by Bry

[Welshace]

And what experience are you giving yourself at the start of each save?  As this is essentially the difficulty settings we have for a save.

 

Also, and i can only go from the one example you give us, you picked a massive club in the lower leagues that are expected to climb back up the leagues to the bundesliga.. so what did you expect?

 

You talk about exposing the transfer market? well don't... set yourself some parameters.. don't sign under or over certain ages, dont sign known wonderkids, don't sign players just so you can sell them on...  

 

It's a single player game... the challenge is whatever you set yourself.. so set some harder goals for yourself..

[likesiamesefish]

34 minutes ago, Bry said:

IMO if FM was remotely realisticand faithful to a real career arc, it wouldn't be much fun to play.

To be fair though this is exactly what a lot of long term players are looking for, an ultra realistic save where it's a real struggle to get going at all.

I agree though difficulty levels will never be a thing or it would be already and you're right about newcomers finding it too much as it is. It's a shame really.

[Tomor29]

Thanks for your replies and joining this discussion...

16 hours ago, rinso said:

Try some of the challenges in the Challenges forum, limit yourself to signing certain players, impose restrictions on your save.. and don't use any external tools ( no idea if you do or  not, just saying)  or the in game editor.. or reload...  it doesnt matter if it's realistic or not, if it keeps you interested..

Yes, I always make some restrictions to transfer policy of my clubs, mostly do not sign any players over 21 or even 18, sign players only from some nations to make it harder and also to better replicate real transfer policy of the club etc. But it shouldn´t be that way, should be? That you limit yourself, make your own restrictions to make it harder. It should be the other way, that you try to take any potential advantage to achieve success and move your club further. And of course I don´t use any external tools, game editor etc., that wouldn´t make any sense.

13 hours ago, FlorianAlbert9 said:

Usually i can stay always at the same club (usually Mtk in Hungary), building a team buying only U20 and i take 5 years (depends if the team was in first or second division) to dominate the nation. (Win in Europe It another story cause depends from how much inproved the league rep). 

In this edition i'm at 2036 i change 10 clubs at least never succeded to keep working at a club like past edition. 

Well, good for you as it must be fun to slowly build your way up.

2 hours ago, chris31k said:

You have the problem that every player has in every game. The AI is nowhere near the human intelligence.

You are right, for sure. AI cannot be as good as human players but on the other hand I have no problems with AI in some other areas of FM - I would say that I am not beating AI on tactical field and find it challenging enough but this cannot be said about transfer market, squad building and human resources in general. Just one example - hos is it possible that we can regularly sell average squad players for fees we would never pay for them? It happens again and again. And then we bring players of same or even better quality for much smaller fees.

1 hour ago, Bry said:

I agree with the OP's sentiments. However, I think that a lot of us have grown up with a game that, while it has become a much more polished and in depth experience, hasn't changed a great deal in terms of how to 'beat' it and manipulate its mechanics. It's therefore no surprise that a lot of people have become very good at it and find it too easy. But I remember it took me years to become any good at it, and if SI made the game any harder it would likely turn off newcomers.

As an aside, IMO if FM was remotely realistic (it's a bit bonkers that some people think it is) and faithful to a real career arc, it wouldn't be much fun to play. The vast majority of managers stay at a club for barely more than a couple of seasons nowadays and have nowhere near the level of responsibility that FM affords. That being said, real managers have to conduct scores of menial tasks daily. Most clubs stay around the same level IRL, rattling between the same few divisions for years, even decades, on end.  All of this would be an absolute dirge to play and one may as well go get a FIFA badge and try it for real. But it's not a criticism. FM has to be unrealistic and focus on the romantic escapism of a once in a blue moon Eddie Howe-esque rise through the leagues with an underdog club. 

I partly agree with you, partly not. You are right that we have some experience as long term players and it surely helps a lot if you know what is working and what isn´t but I do not think that you need any experience to beat AI on the transfer market, sign talented youngsters and sell for big. You can always find AI releasing highly talented players, transfer listing them or selling for almost nothing and in contrary overpaying for your players. I always find it very interesting that a youngsters who draws interest of some of the world´s biggest teams then decides to sign for my team that is an average club from a small league. This would never happen in real life, would it? Or maybe 1 out of 100 cases.

1 hour ago, Welshace said:

And what experience are you giving yourself at the start of each save?  As this is essentially the difficulty settings we have for a save.

 

Also, and i can only go from the one example you give us, you picked a massive club in the lower leagues that are expected to climb back up the leagues to the bundesliga.. so what did you expect?

Lowest experience, no coaching badges, ALWAYS.

I cannot agree with your second notice - Ok, Kaiserslautern that I used as an example is a big club, you are right, but is in the third league with not a great squad and surely not expected to win everything and challenge for the Bundesliga title in 3-4 years. Just have a look at their real life achievements - there´re stuck in the third division, on average position for the second year. So, they may have potential but their way up should be rather slow. It would be much more fun for me to stay 2-3 years in 3.Liga than slowly build a squad and finances for promotion from second divison and then try to establish us in Bundesliga. This should take many seasons in my eyes.

[anagain]

Play the full on LLaMa experience - that's Lower League Manager. 

• Don't use the player search
• Only sign players your scouts suggest
• Only use your own tactics
• Sign backroom staff from adverts only
• Use attribute masking

Essentially LLM is a way of playing the game by imposing rules on yourself that make it harder. Start at the lowest level with the most basic experience and coaching badges. I would recommend starting unemployed, but you could pick a team. Someone made a great LLM team picker a few weeks back and posted it here.

There are very many tools within FM that real life managers do not have. There is no magic search tool to find players in real life. Actual managers have scouting teams.

This is the way I have played FM for years. Believe me when I say that at some clubs you will never have the progression you spoke of in your post. Of course, FM is never going to be perfect and it will eventually get to a point that you progress easier than you would in the real world. As someone said games are limited by AI, and no AI will beat a human.

When you find youself at the arse-end of Sweden, no one wants to join your club, your strikers couldn't hit the house of parliament, let alone a goal, your defenders couldn't tackle a yogurt. That's when you realise you're a long way from Kaiserslautern.

Edited February 2, 2020 by anagain

[Ether_mR]

One thing I have wanted to do for some time was to play without attributes listed as numbers and instead colors only. Here is the inspiration, if you try it; good luck and let me know how it goes.

 

 

[majesticeternity]

Before you play a match, set the other teams morale as highest, and optionally also give them 100% fitness. Most AI are terrible with squad management, so their players are unhappy and tired, so this makes the games harder and more equal. 

[Freakiie]

Player development in general is far too easy and fast for the user, which results in far too easy squad building. That combined with the fact that youngsters perform far too consistently, whereas irl you often see teams lacking experience heavily struggling with consistency (Look at Ajax; EL finalist with performances all over the place during the knockout stages, CL semi finalist last year, but also a streak of very embarrassing failures in the qualification rounds the years before that), results in you being able to field a very young team with consistent results, with players improving quite a bit over the season and then at the end of the season the AI sees a bunch of very well performing young talents so they throw money at them assuming they're all the next big thing.

In FM you send a scout to look at a 16 yr old for a month and he'll tell you the guy is professional, pretty consistent, although somewhat iffy in big matches. I mean the guy never played in a big match, but we can tell he handles them poorly! The only way to buy a flop in FM is if the guy straight up has low PA. A player you know has high PA set in the database will almost always hit that PA if you manage him. Pretty much the only inconsistency is whether he hit the lower or upper bound of his PA range if he has a negative PA set.

In the current database there are two 19 year olds with 150 or more CA. In FM (as long as they have ok PA), 150 CA 19 year olds are nothing out of the ordinary. Ironically one of said wonderkids was dumped on the bench due to poor performances in real life. If you manage him in FM he'd probably be one of the best defenders in the world after a year as long as he doesn't hit the lower end of his PA range.

I would love to see SI overhaul the player development side of the game. Make it so we can't instantly tell someone is highly professional. Make personalities overall perhaps a bit more dynamic. We do sometimes see this in FM, but it happens so rarely that when someone sees it happen they first ask whether they found a bug. Make players stop in their development, even if they have PA left. I mean sometimes a guy just doesn't seem to develop for 1-2 seasons, then a different trainer comes in, he plays a new position or moves to a different club altogether and suddenly he performs far better. A lot could be done here to make development be a bit more dynamic than "He's rated as 5* potential and is fairly professional, now I just gotta hope he actually has decent PA" and it'd hopefully make 20 year olds with world class CA more uncommon, preventing you from fielding an entire squad of 20 year olds and trashing the CL with them.

Meanwhile AI sticks to reputation (Fielding 38 year olds as first squad players because high rep for the win), CA and barely fields youngsters (although some still develop really fast even without playtime if their personalities are ok), as a result they let go off a lot talented youngsters or they simply never develop. And yes, they then would rather buy your ****** average (but part of an otherwise (over)-performing team, so they look good) players for too much money. The ironic part though is that if you make AI look solely at attributes you get people complaining about the opposite, nobody showing interest in your players despite them performing really well. Which leads to the core of that issue, the fact we exactly see someone's attributes. If you didn't see attributes and had a player that banged in 30 goals a season, would you think twice before replacing him? Probably, since he's banging in goals and you have no idea if your 19yr old replacement would do that too! Vice versa, if you saw the top scorer of your competition was on the transfer list would you have a look at him? If you can see he's far worse attribute wise than your main striker, nope you'd ignore him. If you didn't see his exact attributes though? It'd involve a lot more thought I bet.

Unfortunately I don't see any major changes happen here anytime soon (and secretly I might be somewhat glad about this since FM sounds way more complicated with these changes), so for now if you really want to challenge yourself you'll have to be the one that places restrictions on yourself, rather than leaving it to the game.

[Ether_mR]

@Freakiie I feel your pain and agree, but know that you don’t have to play in a way where you know players CA’s, PA’s and attributes. This is your choice. I agree on all points though, scouting is a bit too easy in the vanilla game. 

[Tomor29]

2 hours ago, Ether_mR said:

One thing I have wanted to do for some time was to play without attributes listed as numbers and instead colors only. Here is the inspiration, if you try it; good luck and let me know how it goes.

 

 

This is something I have been thinking a lot recently and I am quite tempted to try it. To play without attributes or replace attributes with just color bars for attribute ranges. This could be very well combinated with some kind of Moneyball principles. I have found Shrewnaldo skin that replaces attributes but would like to know if there is a possibility to also remove stars for CA/PA. Can anyone help me?