[Players completely happy to accept lower wages]

Thanks Ben

Team is San Andres in the Colombian second division

Nearly all of the players have 12 months left on their deals at the start of the game, so I began offering them new deals. As the club isn't rich I wanted to cut the wage bill, and the players made that a really easy task as most of them were perfectly happy to accept ~70% of their old deals

This happened very close to the start of the game, it would probably be replicable right from the start.

 

On a side note, this also is usually doable with staff nearing the ends of their contracts, you can usually haggle them down to a cut of £50-£100 a week. Whilst this is slightly more believable if someone is nearing their contract end, I would again say that maybe the staff should demand that their new deal starts when the old one runs out, and not immediately.

 

 

Basically if the earnings from the new deal will be less per week than the old one, staff should reject it or only accept it starting when their current deal runs out. Barring situations where you've asked players to lower their wage demands to help the club financially etc

[Players completely happy to accept lower wages]

As the title says, players at my club seem completely happy to accept lower terms.

A 19-year-old goalkeeper on £400 a week was happy to sign for £250 a week

This same pattern happens across the team. And no, the bonuses aren't better. They have 12 months left on their deal, and I extend them to 2 years. Even so, nobody would accept such a wage cut even with an extra year added in.

 

Just seems unrealisic. Players really should never accept lower terms unless they're old, or unless the new terms apply at the end of their current contract.

[Football Manager 2021 Official Feedback Thread]

1 minute ago, IrrelevantLion said:

Try Wycombe in the Championship? Seriously there are challenges out there. 

I'm in a league I've never managed in, in a continent I've never managed in, using a foreign language I'm trying to learn as the in-game language, managing a team with no transfer budget and who had 5 first-team goalkeepers to begin with, who are located so far from the rest of the league no-one will agree friendlies with them except for the reserves.

I think I've chosen a reasonable challenge already.

[Football Manager 2021 Official Feedback Thread]

Anyone else finding it still unsatisfyingly easy?

I'm still unbeaten, have just battered a team in the division above me, and rarely give the opposition a chance. Playing a 5-2-2-1 asymmetric tika-taka based formation with a few tweaks (not a downloaded tactic, this is something I threw together that I expected to have to make changes to each game, but so far it's been absurdly good), with a team projected to finish mid-table at best.

 

As I've said elsewhere the look and feel of the ME this year is fantastic, but unless I've just been lucky so far the challenge is non-existent...

[Do you want the full release to be harder than the beta?]

One of the FM's, I think it was FM17 but I might be wrong, was way harder than the other games, and I hated playing it as a result. I could not get anything working. Constantly lost games, the AI were ruthless.

This is the complete opposite, and to be honest it's just as demotivating.

 

I'm undefeated. I chose tika-taka but amended it a fair amount, making it asymmetrical and trying something slightly weird. And aside from a couple of tweaks in the friendlies that's all I've needed to do. Not only am I undefeated, the opposition barely get a single chance, or sometimes even a single shot at my goal! And I'm a mid-table team in a poor division.

After destroying my rivals in a cup game I've stopped playing the game for now, hoping for a patch to improve the AI.

 

 

I have to also say that the ME itself seems great - it's way better than last year and seems to function well, it just seems to be the AI not knowing how to attack that's the problem, so hopefully it can be a fix that doesn't ruin the ME.

[FM2020 & FM2021 - Defender Upfront Challenge]

Keep up  the good work! Mings was smashing it as a striker, please definitely try this again on FM2021 and see if anythings changed!

[FM20 Experiment - Goalkeeper as striker in Liverpool (Inspired by Phil Jones ✕ Paris Saint-Germain)]

16 hours ago, Maradonna said:

havent looked into it, dont know the details. So I cant comment on that.

https://www.reddit.com/r/footballmanagergames/comments/jleys3/i_put_phil_jones_up_front_for_psg_heres_what/

[FM20 Experiment - Goalkeeper as striker in Liverpool (Inspired by Phil Jones ✕ Paris Saint-Germain)]

30 minutes ago, Maradonna said:

/EDIT: So OP took an "engine breaker" tactic, plugged garbage players on top and they perform decently? This is the actual feature of an engine breaker! I think on FM19 somebody build an engine breaker tactic and he won the CL first season no transfers with Rosenborg Trondheim. Conclusion is basically that engine breakers still exist, quite underwhelming after 5 pages of comments and teasing screenshots.

How would you explain the Reddit Phil Jones thing? That uses a prebuilt tactic in the game

[FM2020 & FM2021 - Defender Upfront Challenge]

It's a shame Ben Mee was out injured for a while, but great to see you can survive in the PL playing him up top!

[What are your house rules?]

I guess I have a number of house rules:

1. No yearly wage rises. To anyone. Ever.

2. Low contracts. I never give players more than say £80k a week, and usually keep them below £50k. I'd rather sell someone than give them a higher wage. I bump up the bonuses to help get contracts this low, which I'm happy to pay for since it means the player is contributing well.

3. Simple transfer deals. No mega complex structures to be paid over a number of years.

4. Centre backs must be at least 6'2", ideally 6'4" and above

5. No wingers. I want the width to come from the wing backs.