warlock

Ha, my teams often play badly! In fact, my almost full-strength Man Utd team just lost in the EFL Cup against what was effectively Southampton reserves. You can certainly see when your team is playing badly from the scoreline, the player ratings, possession stats and more. What I meant was that you don't see (or rather, I don't see) the real difference in quality between two teams in the 3D engine. In fact I often see lower-league teams playing brilliant Brazil-style football - one-touch, pass-and-move - until they make the kind of astonishing mistakes we're talking about. It's as if, in the 3D engine, the only visible difference in a game between Sutton Utd and Chelsea is that Sutton just make more mistakes, whereas the real difference is that the Sutton players simply don't have the skill, flair, vision, touch and athletic ability of the Chelsea players. Note: I'm *not* saying that Sutton couldn't or shouldn't compete against Chelsea. And sometimes, as in my United match, mistakes borne of complacency are the difference. But I hope one day we'll get a 3D engine capable of showing the difference in class between two widely differing teams.

Wrong. If I'm lucky I'll get a couple of hours per session, maybe two or three sessions a week. Still fun. For you, maybe. Not for other people. Perhaps you do; other people don't. Might be something you're doing, or not doing, or not understanding. As Maw74 pointed out, real players make mistakes too. More than that, sometimes it's a limitation of the 3D animations (players running away from the ball, goalkeeper muppetry), sometimes it's tactical, and sometimes that your players just aren't good enough to play the way you've instructed them to play. For me, the single biggest drawback with the 3D engine is that it simply can't show a team playing badly - all teams play at the same level but the poorer team (or a team having a bad day) just makes lots of dumb mistakes: apparently easy passes not completed, crosses wildly overhit, shots a mile off target, defenders who dawdle and get robbed by an opponent. But I think the 3d engine gets better with every release and hopefully this will be solved. If you want to discuss any of these things, go ahead. But if you open with a volley of whining snark, you can't be surprised when it's thrown back.

Yes, that's the one downloaded and installed today, which seems to have fixed the problems.

Despite the fact that last night my NVidia GForce Experience insisted my drivers were up to date, today I have downloaded and installed a more recent update - driver v382.05 - and this has solved the issue. FM is now running perfectly in both the 3D match view, and generally across the UI.

My laptop installed the Win10 update last night and FM17 is utterly borked. I've applied all of the fixes outlined above and the 3D match display is still unwatchable; and so are any aspects of the UI that rely on scrolling or in-place updating. So far this is confined to FM17 - other applications including Google Chrome browser with scrolling and Youtube videos perform as expected and as before the update. An offical SI response to the issue would be appreciated because it seems obvious that something in the Win10 update is not working with FM17.

Oh please! I don't have a PhD in pass-stringing; I can rarely come up with a tactic of my own that works. But there's lots of raw material in the tactic forum that provides inspiration, ideas, and a working template, that I can then take and make my own. I've had good saves, great saves, terrible saves. It's a computer game, not an alternative to real life, and when I get burned out with FM (usually happens around Jan/Feb) I play other stuff (Total War, Elite:Dangerous, Call of Duty, whatever). And after a while the urge for more FM creeps up and I fire it up again, and enjoy it again. But we always appreciate people like you who come round at regular intervals to tell the rest of us that we're not having fun, or not having fun in the right way, or that we're too stupid to realise we're having the wrong fun.

Sounds like one for the EFL highlight reel for years to come. Congrats on the win!

Before someone comes along and unloads a pile of snark, let me suggest that no-one is going to offer (or be able to offer) any help based on your post. You've got to provide a ton of information - screenshots, formation, tactical setup. Are you winning games you should lose, and losing games you should win, or vice-versa? Are you winning at home and losing away, or vice-versa? Are you making big changes or small? Are you making carefully-considered changes (and if so, why; what's your thinking)? On what you've given so far, you can only expect a huge shrug in response. We don't know, haven't a clue, not the foggiest notion.

Ah, that'll be why I had to go down a couple of pages to find it. Knew you'd done one, though.

He did:

I'd gently suggest that thinking in terms of algorithms isn't going to get you very far. You complain that the game is "too mechanical", then you ask for details that will simply make it even more mechanical. And your basic premise - that "Football Manager incessantly punishes the player for attempting to be creative" - is just plain wrong. If you look through the Tactics forum, and the team guides, you'll find players who have had success with just about every approach imaginable, every formation, every combination of team shape and mentality. What has changed over the years is that the AI has become smarter and more adaptable, which may be why you get turned over in the second half of matches. The AI adapts; it sounds like you don't.

I usually opt for more tactical with top teams since you can hire plenty of dedicated coaches for the technical stuff. At lower- and non-league clubs, I usually go the opposite way with a tracksuit manager, putting extra points into attack, defend and/or fitness coaching. But I honestly couldn't tell you if it makes any difference!

It's funny, but I've never been able to get it to work with United. Just played one fantastic season with Monaco - went 28 games unbeaten and finished the season with just three defeats, all of which came during a March/April injury crisis. Still did a clean sweep of the French domestic trophies, beat PSG home and away, and demolished them in the cup. Great squad, beautiful football. I know Franky has had success with United, but it just doesn't gel for me, and I wonder how much of it is the squad. Front to back, only De Gea, Smalling, Bailly, Pogba and Ibra really suit the tactic. Shaw is OK at WBl, but Darmian is a poor fit; Blind is OK at CM, but the backups never perform; and Miki, Mata,, Martial and Rashford are square pegs in round holes. Rooney does OK at SS when he's fit - which, in my experience, is almost never. Contrarily, a while back I had a great first season with United playing Franky's Phantoms tactic. It's been said before but, regardless of tactic, you need the right players.

End of season, and I think we did OK Played PSG three times and won them all, which was satisfying. Signed Gelson Fernandes in July since the tactic needs three central midfielders and we were short on rotation (Dirar was sold because he didn't fit the tactic). Then in January Lemar had his head turned by Liverpool, so he left for £32m and I brought in Hakim Zayech for £24m. I take back what I said about Carillo - he finished as top goalscorer and player of the year, and I gave him a new contract. Falcao dropped off towards the end of the season but had a habit of cropping with a hat-trick at regular intervals. It's a fantastic squad and they played some beautiful football. All three of my defeats came in March/April as injuries started to mount and I couldn't rotate enough to keep fresh legs. And there may be trouble ahead - Man City, Chelsea and Real Madrid are pursuing half of the first team, and the board have given me just £10m transfer budget!

I'm exactly half-way through my first season and undefeated in La Ligue. Playing an aggressive 4312. Sadly, a different story in Europe. Got through the early qualifiers without problem then drew the archetypal group of death: Real Madrid, Arsenal and PSV. First up, Madrid at home, they went to 10 men in the first three minutes, and ripped us apart. 3-0 loss to a Ronaldo hat-trick; god knows what the score would have been if they'd had 11 men. In the away tie, with a more cautious approach, we lost 4-0. Arsenal we lost away (an unlucky 1-0) and then won at home; beat PSV home and away, but finished third in the group on 9 points. Fenerbache up next in the Europa. Defensively, we've been sound, with only Raggi in line to be replaced (and he hasn't been terrible); midfield has been excellent; the problems have been up front, I think. I've been retraining Mbappe as a striker and, while it's too early to say, it hasn't been a great success. Only Falcao looks like the real deal and I think Carrillo and Germain are not good enough for the top level. That's where we need to spend, either in January or June. Falcao is top scorer; Mendy most POMs; Moutinho highest-rated.