janrzm

50, just. There from the very start and still searching for my inner Klopp.....

I went away for a long weekend, so of course the Beta was updated........ Mixed bag of responses so far although the general consensus is improvement over the current ME. Question, is the player keeping the ball in play for his opponent whilst running past it still present?????

Zombie slayer

60,000 people playing it doesn't paint a full picture IMO. I'm still sat here playing it and frankly, as it currently stands I've never disliked the game (ME) more.....this, despite the gameplay outside of the ME being the best its ever been.

I don’t recall ever seeing one asleep on the pitch though....

100%, every season you're faced with having to manually assess this and its painful and easy to miss something. I always go to the Squad/Registration screen which I guess most people do, it wouldn't take to much to add a "Proposed" competition selection option to that which would make things easier.

I have assigned 9 of my scouts for very specific tasks, I would quite happily assign a member of staff to manage the remaining ones for the rest of the season. Currently we are either 100% doing it or 100% delegating it. As an intermediate option I'd find it very useful if there was a "Manage Unassigned Scouts" option.

Must have been raised or queried in the bug thread, I'll head over and take a look.....I was looking for a reason to leave.

And keyboard sales rise........ In the last hour I noticed this on the counter attacking 4-4-2 I was working on, so high up the pitch despite the much lower defensive line......

I've only started one save. I had my fair share of 1v1, zombie defender, long ball, poor defensive header in the first season but those have gradually diminished. Is something established at the generation of a save that could lead to such differing experiences between players? I'm looking forward to the patch but not looking forward to having to tweak everything again....

Yep, it's worth adding that I almost always start every FM version thinking its the hardest one yet as well. But, eventually you work through the ME nuances and adjust accordingly. I do feel this nagging "randomness" that has been referenced though so I totally get that. There's not much ground between doing well/it feels to easy and not doing well/it feels to hard. SI are almost on a hiding to nothing with that one.

And I appreciate the frustrations because I also see those, It's annoyed the life out of me at times and I too parked the game for a while. I went back with a clear head and tried again, sure they are still there but you can diminish some of them enough to at least play without wanting to throw the keyboard across the room, mostly.... I think you're right with that second point, look at Liverpool, everyone knows how they'll play and at times it feels like they are just so good at it that everything else is almost inconsequential. In the most part though I think teams do have to adapt because being predictable can ultimately undermine the fact that you do something very well. It allows teams to plan in precise detail how they can spoil your tactic. I think we regularly see limited teams "spoil" the desired style/tactic of far superior teams?

There's a positive side to this, honestly!!! I'd argue that whilst the AI does require you to adapt your tactics from season to season (unless you have an exploit tactic) its still too slow to react under most circumstances. I played my first save, first season with HSV. A good team to start with as they have a strong squad and the Bundesliga 2 isn't that strong, with only 3-4 good teams. I sneaked promotion playing mostly attacking football and learning the nuances of this years ME, also dealing with its perceived flaws of which there are several. The following season, my first in the Bundesliga I won the league playing more or less the same way because most teams underestimated us and played open attacking football against us. Totally unrealistic as I only strengthened a few positions, mid table would have been realistic for that squad. Season three and the AI has eventually caught on, now a lot of teams park the bus and it's necessitated a change of approach. I alway set up three tactics, the way I want to play (attacking), a variation of that which is more balanced and a direct counter attacking tactic which sits back, invites pressure and hits teams with decisive counters. Also, I almost always tweak roles etc before games and during. For me, this adds realism, I hate the idea of using a tactic that just wins with no work on my part other than picking a team. I think there are plenty of players on here that want and need the AI to be even more intelligent in the way it assess the opposition and even more fluid during games. Also, more aggressive when it needs to be. EDIT: I should just reiterate that some of the issues with this years ME are undoubtably causing additional frustration, myself included.

Isn't that a classic "FM Tell" for an unbalanced tactic though, I had a similar Newcastle save in a previous version that drove me mad for the same reason until I figured it out. Maybe its a combination of both and its exaggerating the situation?

I'm scoring freely, looking around the leagues in my save the Ai strikers are perhaps looking a bit light on goals, most likely for the reason you state. I actually settled on a tactic from my FM19 Liverpool save once I'd acquired good enough players. Currently my forwards are looking like this - Inside Forward - Support - 26 goals and 4 assists in 29 games. (2 are pens) False 9 - 17 goals and 2 assists in 26 games. (2 are pens) Inside Forward - Attack - 5 goals and 12 assists in 25 games. The midfield trio have 15 assists between them and the Fullback on Attack that sits behind my top scorer has 7 assists. I'm happy with the distribution of goals and assists and I'm certainly scoring a variance of goals. If anything I feel I'm scoring too freely at times.