Difficulty

[Pompeyboyz]

This is my entrant to the question of is the game too easy

With my yearly transfers

Hardly the best players, but played them correctly and rotated to manage injuries well. 

[Dagenham_Dave]

Insane amount of signings every season there. 

[Pompeyboyz]

Not showing released players though

I do play with a high turnover of players, but managed to stay with budget, just, each season

[Dagenham_Dave]

10 minutes ago, Pompeyboyz said:

This is my entrant to the question of is the game too easy

And all this means is it's perhaps too easy FOR YOU. 

If you're enjoying that fine - If you want a challenge, well, you know what to do. 

[Pompeyboyz]

14 minutes ago, Dagenham_Dave said:

And all this means is it's perhaps too easy FOR YOU. 

If you're enjoying that fine - If you want a challenge, well, you know what to do. 

I don't know it is is too easy.  I've certainly found this years easier, but I've played it more seriously too and put more effort and thought into it 

[alko123]

My last iteration was FM 2018. Liked the challenge to go from bottom England leagues to the top. Was already in the second league, but then the game make a ugly things: 20 lost games in row!

Was so angry, that i deinstalled it and never came back. 

But now, after few years, im thinking, i will give it another chance. 

 

[Brother Ben]

8 minutes ago, alko123 said:

My last iteration was FM 2018. Liked the challenge to go from bottom England leagues to the top. Was already in the second league, but then the game make a ugly things: 20 lost games in row!

Was so angry, that i deinstalled it and never came back. 

But now, after few years, im thinking, i will give it another chance. 

 

Nothing against you alko123 but this is why SI would never make the game too hard.

Deinstalling and never coming back after losing a lot is a nightmare scenario for SI

 

[DP]

The challenge I want is the one Pep has right now with City. 
 

Does that sort of challenge exist in the game?

[Ngoc]

The challenge is as much as you want to be if you like to win easy you can win easy if you like to challenge yourself you can is up to you not to the devs in this game to place some rule to make it hard

 

you can even force yourself to limit the transfer to 5 per season or to never sell player to more than their value you can do whatever you want never use gegenpress or high pressure tactics you can use the rule to never play friendly or to never search for player only use scout suggestion you can find skins that hide all the player stats you can make it very hard if you want 

 

what is so hard for people to understand you make it easy or you make it hard SI doesn’t force any of it to you they give you a sandbox and you can mold it to your liking only morons say is too easy 

[SOULjah]

Apologies if I am teaching a granny to suck eggs here.

However, there are settings in-game where you can essentially create a more difficult game or if you so wish a more easier game.

For instance how you set-up your coaching experience at the start of the game, I'm sure this is kind of a difficulty setting and then there is the database settings where after you select the leagues you want to play in there is a setting you can still change where you play with a small, medium and large database - where essentially you get far less of a chance to get players if you choose a small database.

[RandomGuy.]

On 07/12/2023 at 14:08, DP said:

The challenge I want is the one Pep has right now with City. 
 

Does that sort of challenge exist in the game?

It will be but it will be rare, I imagine. How often has it happened to him in his career? Cant remember his Bayern career too well but think this might be his longest ever winless run.

Theyll still turn it around and either win the league or come very, very, close though. Im not sure theres a challenge there really (for FM players in the game replicating it, not Pep in real life) beyond just a slightly bad run of form of 4/5 games before you get back to murdering the league.

[DP]

On 07/12/2023 at 14:17, Ngoc said:

The challenge is as much as you want to be if you like to win easy you can win easy if you like to challenge yourself you can is up to you not to the devs in this game to place some rule to make it hard

 

you can even force yourself to limit the transfer to 5 per season or to never sell player to more than their value you can do whatever you want never use gegenpress or high pressure tactics you can use the rule to never play friendly or to never search for player only use scout suggestion you can find skins that hide all the player stats you can make it very hard if you want 

 

what is so hard for people to understand you make it easy or you make it hard SI doesn’t force any of it to you they give you a sandbox and you can mold it to your liking only morons say is too easy 

It’s not about making it hard, it’s about making it as realistic a sandbox as possible. And one where you win all the time (once you’ve established yourself) is not a realistic sandbox. Hence why SI are making headline changes to AI etc. 

[phnompenhandy]

10 minutes ago, DP said:

It’s not about making it hard, it’s about making it as realistic a sandbox as possible. And one where you win all the time (once you’ve established yourself) is not a realistic sandbox. Hence why SI are making headline changes to AI etc. 

Realistic? Where SI lets you down, Dave comes to the rescue

[FM24] "Increase Realism"- Megapack DECEMBER UPDATE by Daveincid

[Ngoc]

You get to the point where is not realistic because you make unrealistic choice buying the best players hunt down them by stats picking the most unrealistic exhausting tactic to win easy and so on.

 It’s as unrealistic as you make it to be 

[Cloud9]

On 30/11/2023 at 05:51, Jack Currie said:

Hi all,

I hope this post comes across in good taste as it is designed to.

I have been playing football manager way back since championship manager days when I was just very young.

I feel as though the last few editions of the game have just been getting easier and easier with this years title the easier of them all.

I was managing a team expected to finish in the bottom few positions in League Two yet we went 30+ matches unbeaten and won the league at a canter.

Promoted to League One we are now immediately challenging at the top of the division and some of the signings I have made seem far too good for the level.

It just is really ruining the realistic feel football manager has always had. There is simply no enjoyment in turning the game on knowing no matter what happens I am going to win 4/5 of the matches I play.

I get SI wants to attract new players and would make the game easy for them but as someone who has played for 20+ years it is as if you know that it is too easy for players like me but won’t do anything about it as we will always buy the game.

Either make the game tougher or introduce a proper realism difficulty mode.

 

 

Introducing your own limitations onto your save is necessary. 

No future fees, no loans, only signing players your scout find etc. are all good starting points. You can set additional limitations like preventing yourself from using strong roles like the AF or give yourself a clear tactical style you're attempting to emulate.

The financial system is reworked this year. In my own save w/Wednesday those financial realities make the game VERY difficult (ie. on promotion to the prem 0 transfer budget). Taking over a club in crisis as a challenge save is actually that this year. 

Starting the game with no coaching badges will also make your start challenging, as the players will hate you for the first season or so.

Getting promoted from the Championship w/the above limitations is genuinely difficult, especially if you're not one of the established clubs. The schedule is packed, finances are limited, and the big boys have parachute payments. Going into the promotion decider matches after a grueling season is one of the best things the game has to offer, and will push you as a manager if you're feeling burnt out. The first season after promotion relegation scrap is another highlight imo. This year the relegated teams are Leeds, Leicester, and Southampton which is an extra difficulty level if you start in the Championship. Watford and Norwich are still knocking around, as are the tractor boys.

Looking to pick up a Domestic Cup when you're a true underdog, in the first few years of your save is also a great feeling.

I would take over an in debt club in League One or the Championship for a proper challenge, and set yourself a time frame you'll manage in. This will remove the feeling of inevitability. I give my saves 8 years to see what I can achieve, before retiring. The AI is quite bad at long term squad building, which has always been my issue of taking a team up from non league football.

Edited December 10, 2023 by Cloud9

[Dagenham_Dave]

8 hours ago, Cloud9 said:

The AI is quite bad at long term squad building,

It gets MUCH better when all the real life players are gone from the game, particularly the higher profile ones. 

[DP]

On 09/12/2023 at 10:25, phnompenhandy said:

Realistic? Where SI lets you down, Dave comes to the rescue

[FM24] "Increase Realism"- Megapack DECEMBER UPDATE by Daveincid

How are you finding this? 

[DP]

2 hours ago, Dagenham_Dave said:

It gets MUCH better when all the real life players are gone from the game, particularly the higher profile ones. 

It doesn’t get harder though. At the top levels - from what I’ve seen - you need fewer points to win the league. 

[phnompenhandy]

2 minutes ago, DP said:

How are you finding this? 

My current save was started long before his files dropped, so they're ready for the next one. I'm looking out for reports from players who have started a new save with them. Generally, it takes a few seasons to see any clear patterns.

[Dagenham_Dave]

12 minutes ago, DP said:

It doesn’t get harder though. At the top levels - from what I’ve seen - you need fewer points to win the league. 

Not in my game universe

2032 - teams winning the league, games lost:

Man City, 2

Barcelona, 3

Bayern, 3

Napoli, 4

Rangers, 3

Ajax, 4

PSG, 5 (higher than usual, but the year before they were unbeaten)

That all seems pretty normal to me. 

[DP]

1 hour ago, Dagenham_Dave said:

Not in my game universe

2032 - teams winning the league, games lost:

Man City, 2

Barcelona, 3

Bayern, 3

Napoli, 4

Rangers, 3

Ajax, 4

PSG, 5 (higher than usual, but the year before they were unbeaten)

That all seems pretty normal to me. 

That’s really nice to see actually. Maybe some of the changes introduced in patch 2 are filtering through. 

Edited December 10, 2023 by DP

[bosque]

Not sure how you guys find this game easy. The more I read and think I am doing common sense things, the worst form my team has 

[Oliewabie]

1st thing you can do to make it a little harder: never load an old save.

have seconds thoughts about selling or not selling --> too bad. you made you decision.

85 minutes and your up 2-0 in the CL final, total in control an a stupid red card --> losing 2-3 in OT --> too bad.

The difficulty can be increased by not exploiting loopholes

[Dagenham_Dave]

On 10/12/2023 at 17:38, DP said:

That’s really nice to see actually. Maybe some of the changes introduced in patch 2 are filtering through. 

Just to add to this, in the season I've just finished, Bayern won the Bundesliga winning 31 and drawing 3 of their 34 games. 

[DarJ]

On 30/11/2023 at 15:53, rp1966 said:

For an 'easy game' in which a lot of players will gravitate towards the top level clubs the number of people with the 'won a domestic league' steam achievement seems pretty low at 38% ...

Those are the kind of data a company would use to make future decisions. Not everyone who plays the game comes to the forum to interact so although most people that come here find the game easy the reality is that most people don't so it's unreasonable to dedicate too much resources to only accommodate 38% of your fanbase.

I know this is just for steam and there are many more people that play on console now plus I have no idea how they count the player; does it count people that installed the game and played just once or does it only count people that have played for a specific amount of time. 

[DarJ]

1 hour ago, krkyseventwo said:

So I don’t think these achievements should be used to determine or argue difficulty. 

I agree with you you. My argument was not the achievement per say but the fact that they will some kind of data that they use when deciding the direction they want to take the game and although we players might see the game a certain way because of how we play the data might say something completely different.

[CrowManager]

Been a week but like, what the hell are people like OP playing on

sitting here and for the first time in like 5 saves of lower league I haven't promoted out of the 9th tier in my first year, keep getting skull dragged by teams worse than me as well

I know I play more realistic than most but still lmao, this is not the easiest game by a country mile.

[whatsupdoc]

5 hours ago, CrowManager said:

Been a week but like, what the hell are people like OP playing on

sitting here and for the first time in like 5 saves of lower league I haven't promoted out of the 9th tier in my first year, keep getting skull dragged by teams worse than me as well

I know I play more realistic than most but still lmao, this is not the easiest game by a country mile.

4231 default gegenpress...

Player attributes or instructions aren't super important. System pretty much plays itself. 

Edited December 21, 2023 by whatsupdoc

[sthptngomad76]

15 hours ago, whatsupdoc said:

4231 default gegenpress...

Player attributes or instructions aren't super important. System pretty much plays itself. 

This 

[Mobius]

 

22 hours ago, CrowManager said:

I know I play more realistic than most

What does this mean? Because consistently getting battered by teams worse than you doesn't sound very realistic. 

[phnompenhandy]

17 hours ago, Mobius said:

 

What does this mean? Because consistently getting battered by teams worse than you doesn't sound very realistic. 

Perfectly realistic if Mr. Crow was to manage that team in real life

[hitmanhart]

I've found it pretty easy to rocket up the leagues, mainly because the teams tend to be all of a similar standard so a few stand out players (with attributes in the most important positions) and a good tactic is all you really need. Usually the challenge comes from the first couple of seasons in the top league, but loans and free transfers help a lot whilst you accumulate some money to hoard quality under 21s and within about 5 seasons, you begin to start dominating. The Prem is the easiest simply because the money is huge there. It's really only difficult to break into the European elite and start winning the Champions League regularly.

 

I think the game is more difficult these days, I remember back in the CM and early FM era it was so easy to break the match engine and go multiple seasons unbeaten... Plug in a supertactic and you could win the FA Cup whilst in the conference division and get your striker scoring 100 goals a season. I don't think I could do that in FM24. But ultimately, the AI will never be more intelligent than a human player. I haven't played deep enough to know whether the AI is better at squad building now but it should be made to focus more on attributes and ratings than reputation. That's why we've always had the AI buy over the hill players at age 32 for huge transfer fees instead of playing their talented youngsters and why the game gets easier the more seasons you play.

 

The most fun challenges to me are self-imposed restrictions like only signing free transfers or under 21s, only playing a 442, only signing players from a certain nationality etc.

[DP]

I think it’s easier now with plug and play tactics too. A few years back tactics were a blank canvas and it meant a lot more figuring out if you didn’t download one. Now there are pre sets (some overpowered) it makes the game easy to rocket through the leagues. 

[iAlwaysWin]

On 07/12/2023 at 14:08, DP said:

The challenge I want is the one Pep has right now with City. 
 

Does that sort of challenge exist in the game?

Am sorry but Pep Guardiola has had a minor blip compared to complete meltdown of a team and club, ive seen title winning sides completely implode under my control in FM many times, FM isnt always sunshine and roses.

[DP]

4 minutes ago, iAlwaysWin said:

Am sorry but Pep Guardiola has had a minor blip compared to complete meltdown of a team and club, ive seen title winning sides completely implode under my control in FM many times, FM isnt always sunshine and roses.

Not always but it’s accepted that when you start winning leagues, it’s very easy in FM to win multiple leagues on the bounce with very little challenge. 

I don’t have the full data from this version yet so things may have improved on this front but certainly the last 10 years or so (since the game has got complex for the AI) the top teams around you are much more likely to implode than put up a title challenge meaning every season you win it easily (once you are established as a league winner). 

Edited December 22, 2023 by DP

[Spallo]

I am amazed how this topic can come up every year, despite having all the tools (esp your own brain) to make the game more realistic and difficult.

Just play with the Mustermann-iconic skin, dont use player search, download no tactics/training and most important of all - have the control over yourself not to save-scum even once. You would be surprised how you feel, when and esp. IF you win a title 

[Andrew Marines]

Il 10/12/2023 in 14:48 , Dagenham_Dave ha scritto:

It gets MUCH better when all the real life players are gone from the game, particularly the higher profile ones. 

Is this true?

[jcafcwbb]

One thing I have found is that the amount of micro-management available makes it easier for you to beat the game. I think it may always be impossible for SI to programme against every tweak the player can implement.

I have found one way to make the game a decent challenge is to use the preset tactics without tweaks and the player roles/mentalities without PIs. Just reducing the TIs and PIs added extra challenge. My gut feel is that you can programme against the preset ones. I wonder if the believed OPed Gengenpress would be as OPed if you used the preset one without tweaks. Anyone got time to test this? I haven't.

I have found it more fun to use a variation of 4-3-3 DM to deal with opponent tactics. An example of this is using two DMs against an AM behind two strikers. 

I also limit who I can bring in. I use the DOF to make signings but you can adhere to the club vision to the letter. For example, a L2 club in the UK may only sign UK players and not that 16 year old wunderkid from Peru.

[Matej]

22 hours ago, Spallo said:

I am amazed how this topic can come up every year, despite having all the tools (esp your own brain) to make the game more realistic and difficult.

Just play with the Mustermann-iconic skin, dont use player search, download no tactics/training and most important of all - have the control over yourself not to save-scum even once. You would be surprised how you feel, when and esp. IF you win a title 

I never played with that skin- does it hide attributes or what ? Does that skin makes game harder?

[Mobius]

23 hours ago, Spallo said:

I am amazed how this topic can come up every year, despite having all the tools (esp your own brain) to make the game more realistic and difficult.

Just play with the Mustermann-iconic skin, dont use player search, download no tactics/training and most important of all - have the control over yourself not to save-scum even once. You would be surprised how you feel, when and esp. IF you win a title 

Of course, anyone who finds the game less challenging than you is "cheating" in various ways.

And why is the way to make the game more "realistic and difficult" to download an unofficial skin which obscures a large portion of the games data? That's not realistic. Only signing players from your village, only signing 4 foot Andorrans, those aren't 'realistic'

"don't use player search" well of course that makes the game more difficult. Put Bukayo Saka in goal as well, that'll make it more difficult. Did you know you can make Call Of Duty more difficult by intentionally not shooting enemies? 

6 hours ago, jcafcwbb said:

I have found one way to make the game a decent challenge is to use the preset tactics without tweaks and the player roles/mentalities without PIs. Just reducing the TIs and PIs added extra challenge

So you make the game more difficult by just using a default tactic, and then not doing any tweaking or actual football management...

so that's don't make a tactic, don't download a tactic, don't use player search, don't look at player stats, don't sign good players..

Sounds realistic.

It's cool if people want to set up their own challenges and restrictions but it's annoying how the usual response here to people saying the game needs to be more challenging, is essentially "have you tried not scouting?" "Have you tried intentionally not using effective tactics?" or even boasting they've lost 10 matches in a row or have never won a trophy or something, as if that's a sign the game is hard and not that a) they've purposely hamstrung themselves in a way that is not realistic to being a football manager or b) they're actually just rubbish at the game

6 hours ago, jcafcwbb said:

 

I also limit who I can bring in. I use the DOF to make signings but you can adhere to the club vision to the letter. For example, a L2 club in the UK may only sign UK players and not that 16 year old wunderkid from Peru.

You can't sign a "16 year old wonderkid from Peru" as a League 2 side in the game. And if it was possible IRL, clubs would be daft not to explore the opportunity even if it wasn't one of their "club visions"

[Dagenham_Dave]

49 minutes ago, Mobius said:

Only signing players from your village, only signing 4 foot Andorrans, 

You can use nonsense hyperbole, but...

50 minutes ago, Mobius said:

You can't sign a "16 year old wonderkid from Peru"

...others can't. 

Nice.  

[jcafcwbb]

11 hours ago, Mobius said:

 

So you make the game more difficult by just using a default tactic, and then not doing any tweaking or actual football management...

so that's don't make a tactic, don't download a tactic, don't use player search, don't look at player stats, don't sign good players..

Sounds realistic.

It's cool if people want to set up their own challenges and restrictions but it's annoying how the usual response here to people saying the game needs to be more challenging, is essentially "have you tried not scouting?" "Have you tried intentionally not using effective tactics?" or even boasting they've lost 10 matches in a row or have never won a trophy or something, as if that's a sign the game is hard and not that a) they've purposely hamstrung themselves in a way that is not realistic to being a football manager or b) they're actually just rubbish at the game

You can't sign a "16 year old wonderkid from Peru" as a League 2 side in the game. And if it was possible IRL, clubs would be daft not to explore the opportunity even if it wasn't one of their "club visions"

I think you have missed the point of what I have said and tactics in football in general.

But I will explain.

In the past I have set the general tactics with regards to width, passing, whether I countered or dropped back and my defensive lines/counter press and never really touched them - I was successful as I knew what worked. I tried the tactics bundled into the game as I believe the game knows how better to counter them. It is a choice but I see no value in setting a Gengenpress one that is OPed. I definitely see no value in moaning about it in these forums save letting SI know it is over-powered. But if that Oped-ness is ruining your game for you then until they do we saying there are other options.

In real life the managers now do not scout players - that is not their job. At best they offer suggested players or decide on the players signed with the scouting team/DOF once again I am trying to make the game more life like. At some clubs managers have no say in which players are signed. I am following that scenario.

In real life they do not set counter-pressing at scale from one to five - the game has to compromise as it is a game. But I saw a game IRL where my team AFC Wimbledon went to Wycombe in the EFL Trophy. They started in a 3-4-3 and we started in a 4-4-2. We had done our homework and had asked our wingers to cut off the passing lanes from their wide CBs to their wing-backs. We did this so effectively they could not attack and they were forced to change to a 4-3-3. We played a mid-block. Against Swindon they played a 3-4--1-2 against our 4-4-2. We dominated the first half hour playing a high press - they changed to a 4-3-1-2 and dominated the last 15. At half time we changed to a 4-3-1-2 and won the match 4-0.

That rambling paragraph shows that tweaks to formation is just as  important than the tweaks to the stuff in the tactics section both in the game and IRL. This season's El Classico and Ancelotti's positional tweaks also shows this. I have much more success changing the mentality and formation. There is fundamentally no difference from setting up your general tactics at the start of the season and letting it run through and choosing, say wing play, from the SI tactics and using formation and roles/mentality to change your tactics. I would like the game to have some kind of way of asking a player to cut passing lanes as managers do in real life but that is not in the game. Maybe that will come with the new engine.

[phnompenhandy]

13 hours ago, Matej said:

I never played with that skin- does it hide attributes or what ? Does that skin makes game harder?

It does, yeah. It makes you think about things from a football perspective instead of a stars and numbers shortcut approach. Here's the video explaining it.

This Skin Is a GAME-CHANGER for FM24, Literally | Mustermann Iconic

[NineCloudNine]

Difficulty levels should be relatively simple (though not easy) to implement in a game which is entirely numbers based. Different levels could tune various numbers to up the difficulty (for example injuries, fatigue, personality wrangles, or simply a +ve or -ve multiplier to how player attributes are used in the match engine). This isn't much different to a FPS game giving enemies more HP and reducing the number of medical packs.

The reason this isn't easy - despite being simple - is that it would take a lot of tuning and testing and even small changes would have unpredictable effects in a very detailed game. I'm willing to bet that significantly more people want the game to be harder than want it to be easier, so these changes would be for the benefit of a small minority, all of whom could perfectly well choose to make their own game harder through the choices described in this thread.

[CrowManager]

On 24/12/2023 at 04:29, NineCloudNine said:

Difficulty levels should be relatively simple (though not easy) to implement in a game which is entirely numbers based. Different levels could tune various numbers to up the difficulty (for example injuries, fatigue, personality wrangles, or simply a +ve or -ve multiplier to how player attributes are used in the match engine). This isn't much different to a FPS game giving enemies more HP and reducing the number of medical packs.

The reason this isn't easy - despite being simple - is that it would take a lot of tuning and testing and even small changes would have unpredictable effects in a very detailed game. I'm willing to bet that significantly more people want the game to be harder than want it to be easier, so these changes would be for the benefit of a small minority, all of whom could perfectly well choose to make their own game harder through the choices described in this thread.

But you can do this with mods like Increased Realism mod

[NineCloudNine]

7 minutes ago, CrowManager said:

But you can do this with mods like Increased Realism mod

Almost. It is a good example of what I describe - difficulty in CM is as 'simple' as tweaking some numbers. But that excellent mod is a one-off difficulty increase, which is a lot less complex than multiple SI-endorsed difficulty levels. The work to do that by SI would be - IMO - disproportionate to the benefit, since people who find it too easy can (as you say) download realism mods while those who find it too hard already have tools to help them.

[El Payaso]

This is a somewhat funny conversation, I think. Many people are perhaps rightfully raising their concerns about the 'easiness' of the game while others are giving them ways to 'sabotage' their gameplay.

This is only my opinion, but anyway. When we talk about a career type of game, in my opinion, it is impossible to make the game too difficult as long as the AI and human players are treated the same way by the game. When it is the other way around, aka when the game is made too easy, this kills the career aspect of the game almost completely for the majority of the players. 

I would say that the majority of FM players are those, who want to manage their favorite team and have a career with that. I'd say that something like 'rebuilding Chelsea or Manchester United' is quite popular. When browsing the Manchester United season thread, I noticed that many players already won the Premier League in season one.

Even though Manchester United probably has a 'decent' team in the game, this, in my opinion, should never happen, no matter how good you are at the game or no matter how many exploits you are using. This is because, in the Premier League, you are up against two of the best managers of the last decade, who both have way better and more balanced teams at their disposal. This is also, where the career aspect dies. Where is the career mode in this kind of save if you start winning trophies in season one?

I think it is also a false thing to say that SI is working towards something like this. Because they have been able to create way stronger AI for the beta phase already ages ago. I have seen it myself and I think @Rashidi has also mentioned this in the forums. 

I am personally not the correct person to judge the current difficulty level of the game as I am a slow FM player, who can be happy if he can complete 3-4 seasons in this version. I have been enjoying my retro save with Birmingham City and so far have only won 2 of our ~10 games in total so at least I am not overachieving within the season. Hopefully, things don't go too crazy for me during the transfer windows either. 

 

[MagicHat]

On 30/11/2023 at 15:21, Dagenham_Dave said:

Also, with the money in the game now, managing in England has become easier than it's ever been, particularly when you get to the PL.  You also now have teams well down the leagues who can pay wages equivalent to that of many nations top division teams making it far easier to sign foreign talent.

 

I actually disagree with this, since Brexit the work permit rules changed and made the game more difficult to manage in England, especially in the championship and below, you basically have a squad full of only british players. Where as in past editions you could get cheap brazilians and such just because they had half portuguese nationality etc. On newer versions you'll never be able to buy a brazilian winger for 150k because they'll not get a work permit.

 

I'm currently in Sky bet league one, (i am top of the league though) but all of my squad are british, they were bought mostly from league one down to the vanarama and some from ireland and scotland. on FM15 etc you'd get a full first 11 of quality players on free transfers every season.

[whatsupdoc]

Agree with the above.

With Fulham I have a starting budget of 80m in season two and can easily get 150m more in sales. I did budget well and got 2 big sales to Saudi though... And most EPL clubs could get decent figures if they sold key players after a decent season. So idk how unrealistic that is. 

I can sign most wonderkids and already have 10 of the world's best youngsters including Baldanzi, Veloso, Gray, Pavlovic, Ribeiro etc.

Leaving this aside, what makes it easier this year is that play feels more hard coded and not impacted enough by attributes. 

Players with low pressing/fitness/work ethic attributes can still press well, or play at a high tempo... 

Edited December 30, 2023 by whatsupdoc

[NineCloudNine]

1 hour ago, Litmanen 10 said:

When browsing the Manchester United season thread, I noticed that many players already won the Premier League in season one.

Even though Manchester United probably has a 'decent' team in the game, this, in my opinion, should never happen, no matter how good you are at the game or no matter how many exploits you are using. This is because, in the Premier League, you are up against two of the best managers of the last decade, who both have way better and more balanced teams at their disposal. This is also, where the career aspect dies. Where is the career mode in this kind of save if you start winning trophies in season one?

 

Just to pick up on this point, I agree that the game does not properly depict clubs in crisis. The gap between game and real Man Utd that you highlight is a good example. Barcelona are another - financial car crash in the real world, easy and strong in game.

This is partly because the game (IMO) massively over-rates a lot of the players at thise two clubs. But cohesion and morale are also easier to manage in the game than they are for Xavi and Ten Haag.

That said, a version of FM which made Man Utd and Barcelona as hard to manage as they are in real life would mean a lot of complaints from casual players. This is why I tend to think that making the default game easy, while including tools and options to make it harder, is the right balance.