Did you ever "fall back“ or "struggle“

[Neckzz]

Hi i dont know how i could describe the title but did you ever fall back with success? Like after 3 times winning the league you only got 5th in the league in your 4th season?

in real life it happend multiple times as example. MSV Duisburg, Energie Cottbus, deportivo la Coruna etc. this Teams were in the domestic league but couldnt keep it up there. 

[CARRERA]

Not really, the game is made to succeed 

there are no mechanics that would cause fall backs like in real life. E.g. players / employees you can’t replace adequately move to other clubs, transfer flops, loosing major sponsor deals, clubs with more financial strength pushing from below.

also it’s very unlikely that your Team underperforms to their relative strength, unless you really create tactical nonsense to the highest extend. 

[Neckzz]

10 hours ago, CARRERA said:

Not really, the game is made to succeed 

there are no mechanics that would cause fall backs like in real life. E.g. players / employees you can’t replace adequately move to other clubs, transfer flops, loosing major sponsor deals, clubs with more financial strength pushing from below.

also it’s very unlikely that your Team underperforms to their relative strength, unless you really create tactical nonsense to the highest extend. 

Its kinda frustrating if i got to this moment to win the league over and over again without get a real fight against the other teams. I feel like that the tactic matters much more then the player stats? Maybe this could be a problem that you can overperform that quickly.

[CARRERA]

Well, I simply went away from long term saves at one club. I rather challange myself over and over again by playing a journeyman save with a max of 3-5 years at one club. I might pick high tier clubs to win the Championsleague or lower sides to achieve promotion or becoming a continouisly championsleague playing club or whatever challange there could be. 

[Svenc]

There's another thing in competitive leagues in football, which is rarely ever talked about in the mainstream (as mainstream media need definite heroes to celebrate and sorry losers to laugh about -- both fans desire to have too): 

 

Luck.

People like Benham have made a fortune out of assessing teams. For years they have been arguing that e.g. prior to Bayern's complete financial dominance over the BUndesliga, in Wolfsburg and Stuttgart it was "but" the third and fourth best team that year who had won the Bundesliga. E.g. they were good, but also lucky. Ted Knuton argued much the same for Leicester in 2016. And even for Liverpool's initial record breaking last season, there was an argument made about that in (still competitive) leagues like that, it takes great teams PLUS the x(luck) factor to go on initial wonder streaks like that.

I'm fairly convinced sayings such as "The easiest part is getting to the top, the hardest part is staying there" in big parts originate from that. In leagues yet still competitive, it always takes a bit of luck to be crowned the winner amongst competitors still genuine. See also the "paradox of skill": The Paradox of Skill, which has it that randomness/luck more and more becomes the deciding factor between even competition. The less difference there is between competitors, the more important luck comes as the deciding factor (as competitors are roughly equal equipped by definition).

[quote]As people become better at an activity, the difference between the best and the average and the best and the worst becomes much narrower. As people become more skillful, luck becomes more important.[/quote]



Of course, if there isn't much competition long-term to begin with...

Edited May 2, 2021 by Svenc

[laurentius82]

No, In FM, once you've gotten to the top, you'd have to mess things up on purpose to fall back. It's time to start a new save at that point imo.

[Neckzz]

3 hours ago, laurentius82 said:

No, In FM, once you've gotten to the top, you'd have to mess things up on purpose to fall back. It's time to start a new save at that point imo.

But is there a chance that the AI Teams can catch up on you and start beating you? 

[laurentius82]

1 hour ago, Neckzz said:

But is there a chance that the AI Teams can catch up on you and start beating you? 

Not really. Much more likely that you will only become more and more dominant over time (due to AI's horrible squad building). Anything can happen in individual matches of course, so you may not win the CL and other cups every year, but the league is quite certain to become rather boring. 

[Showerman]

yh instead of winning the Champions League, Cup, Super Cup, European Super Cup and League sometimes I just win the League and Cup.

 

 

[Bradley21]

There's zero chance of ever losing when you start winning, the game just isn't designed to make it difficult for the human manager in any aspect. It really cheapens the game and makes it kind of pointless after a while. If it wasn't for playing network saves with my friends i'd have stopped buying FM years ago due to the complete lack of challenge and lack of meaningful updates to the game. 

[phnompenhandy]

18 minutes ago, Bradley21 said:

There's zero chance of ever losing when you start winning, the game just isn't designed to make it difficult for the human manager in any aspect. It really cheapens the game and makes it kind of pointless after a while. If it wasn't for playing network saves with my friends i'd have stopped buying FM years ago due to the complete lack of challenge and lack of meaningful updates to the game. 

"When I reach the top

I have to stop

And that's what bothering me"

 

True. But there is no lack of challenge. Start again with a lower league club or Academy Challenge or any other popular challenge. Kept me going for over 20 years - and I've never reached the top!

[Bradley21]

2 minutes ago, phnompenhandy said:

"When I reach the top

I have to stop

And that's what bothering me"

 

True. But there is no lack of challenge. Start again with a lower league club or Academy Challenge or any other popular challenge. Kept me going for over 20 years - and I've never reached the top!

I only ever play lower league, single nationality or academy only saves. They still don't pose long term difficulty because once you start winning, you tend to keep at it. Even worse is that as the years go on the terrible AI squad building means you only ever get better while everyone else gets worse. 

[phnompenhandy]

6 minutes ago, Bradley21 said:

I only ever play lower league, single nationality or academy only saves. They still don't pose long term difficulty because once you start winning, you tend to keep at it. Even worse is that as the years go on the terrible AI squad building means you only ever get better while everyone else gets worse. 

I've yet to experience this. Due to lockdown, I've currently gone further in a save than ever before - from Level 13 I'm now in The Championship. My infrastructure and squad are too small but I expect in due course to reach the Premier League. Then we'll see.

[laurentius82]

11 minutes ago, phnompenhandy said:

"When I reach the top

I have to stop

And that's what bothering me"

 

True. But there is no lack of challenge. Start again with a lower league club or Academy Challenge or any other popular challenge. Kept me going for over 20 years - and I've never reached the top!

I can wholeheartedly recommend The Many Steves Challenge:

Create a club in the lowest division. Only rule: you're only allowed have players called Steve at your club. (I do allow Stevens and Stephens too to be honest)

[phnompenhandy]

Just now, laurentius82 said:

I can wholeheartedly recommend The Many Steves Challenge:

Create a club in the lowest division. Only rule: you're only allowed have players called Steve at your club. (I do allow Stevens and Stephens too to be honest)

I do actually sign players on the basis of how silly their names sound.  My last signing was a defender named "Wellard".

[laurentius82]

1 hour ago, phnompenhandy said:

I do actually sign players on the basis of how silly their names sound.  My last signing was a defender named "Wellard".

That's a great idea for a save as well - everyone at the club has to have a silly name. Sure to be a challenge and provide some laughs.

[gunnm0nk]

I'm kind of going through this in my save now. I'm still on FM19.

Started in the third tier of Northern Ireland. Won the third tier, the Intermediate Cup (second and third tier teams, plus top flight reserve sides) and the League Cup. Got to a semi final of a regional cup with a few top tier sides and did okay in the national cup.

Second season, we won the league, the Intermediate Cup, the regional cup and the national cup which got us into Europe. Was knocked out of the League Cup in extra time of the quarter finals because I'm a goof and made a bad tactical error.

Third season, we won the top flight and it wasn't particularly close. We were 13 points clear, scored 93 with a GD of 51. Next highest GD was 22. Won the Charity Shield and the regional cup, got to the quarters in the League Cup.

In the fourth season we finished third after putting in a good chase for the title and being in first for most of the first half of the season before running out of steam.  Won the regional cup and Charity Shield, lost in the semi final of the national cup and the finals of the League Cup. 

I'm currently in my fifth season and Crusaders have absolutely romped it, losing only twice in all domestic competitions and are on GD of 60 with five matches remaining. They're 19 points ahead of me in second. I'm 11 points clear of third. They are likely to take every domestic cup they enter as well.

Even in FM19, the AI is definitely adjusting to you. You have to adapt and continue to build, especially if you come into the top flight with a group of guys who are waaaaaaay below average in pretty every aspect in terms of attributes. I got way overconfident after that first season in the top division and was sentimental towards my core of guys who had piled up all that silverware. And in my case, we had a couple of clubs get really, really hot for a season. I haven't really played since like FM10 and, personally, I love it. Much less of a sense of "fire and forget" in the newer versions IMHO.