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2 minutes ago, sthptngomad76 said:

Agreed. I would take an optional, artificial "AI boosted" mode of the game (even as a tickbox when setting up the game) to compensate over the AI's current shortcomings than nothing at all. There are some extremely complex simulation games on the market that have difficulty settings (Europa Universalis IV is one that comes to mind) that do have some option to increase difficulty.

100% agree and those games are also simulations, so it's a fair comparison.

Like handicapping in horse racing. We know it's a bit arbitrary but it's fair.

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1 minute ago, danielgear said:

 I’m just imaging a squad of players hissing now. 
I understand the realism thing but you asked for a way to make it harder and this is the difficulty setting in FM. 
Would you be willing to do a test season? Both on lowest no badges no experience, same team, even same tactic and see if the game is still as easy? If it is then you can also raise this and evidence of the two saves as comparison?

I'm sure a number of people on here would... between having three kids and industrial-scale matched betting, my time is pretty limited.

 

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10 minutes ago, Dagenham_Dave said:

No, no, and thrice no. 

Not a single person who has mooted this nonsense has ever had a coherent explanation as to how it would work. Spoiler alert - It wouldn't. 

There are lots of ways it could work but bumping up opponent's stats when you play them would do it for me. It wouldn't be perfect but it would at least make it harder for the better players. It would compensate for the fact that with very little effort, the player can have better, fitter and happier players than the AI can achieve.

It's what they do in other games, like Civ. All games, really.

But the beauty is, it wouldn't have to affect those players that either don't need a harder difficulty level or are opposed to it. Only a portion of the players would need it/use it.

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4 minutes ago, danielgear said:

@dannysheardhave you mentioned what badges/experience you started with? I’ve scrolled back and can’t see it? 

I think it's 2-3 below the recommended ones for Liverpool. I could set it even lower but then all realism is lost as the players practically hiss at you every time you walk into the room.

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11 minutes ago, FrazT said:

If you all cannot have a reasonable discussion without the sniping, then this will be closed.

I know we've always shunned the idea but could it be time to introduce difficulty levels into the forum?

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5 minutes ago, SergeiG said:

That's fine, I think adding difficulty should be optional like in CIV. I don't believe in forcing things on people.

I agree difficulty levels should be optional. But it's always the ones that don't need it (that are not finding it easy) that argue against it for some reason.

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2 minutes ago, Dotsworthy said:

Using a skin that replaces attributes with an icon (such as a star) so you can only see the attribute colour is a nice middle ground. 

You can see if a player has attributes that stand out as a strength or a weakness but you don't see the exact gradation between two defenders.

I'd still want to know if someone is Joe Gomez rapid or Kyle Walker rapid, though. Escpecially at the elite-team level. Having both showing as just quick isn't really enough.

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4 minutes ago, SergeiG said:

Really? When and where did I do that? Please don't put words in my mouth or pretend to know what I think.

I don't think this is going to happen, mate, either making the game more difficult or introducing difficulty levels.

Some players thar are overachieving massively are happy with it as it makes them feel good and the players that are not so good and don't overachieve don't want to accept that they're not as good at the game.

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13 minutes ago, herne79 said:

For everyone who says the game is too easy (or too hard for that matter) it would be much more helpful for both the community and the developers to describe in detail exactly how you are playing various aspects of the game.  Especially during the Beta phase.

For example - Do you sim/holiday through seasons?  What level of detail have you selected for leagues/nations (which affects which match engine is used)?  How do you play matches (instant result or watching each match) and to what level of highlights?  Detail your tactical system (screenshots).  How do you manage your squad?  Which club are you playing with and what are your Board’s expected results?  What transfers have you made?  How do you handle Training?  What responsibilities do you delegate?  Etc etc…

If you are finding the game too easy, ideally start a thread in the Bugs forum, detail all of that and upload your game save to let the devs review it in detail 👍.

Unfortunately, we can't even get to that point of the conversation without being shut down by the 'you can't play as Utd or Liverpool or City or Spurs or Chelsea or Arsenal' squad. The 'humblebrag' brigade.

Or get called a cheat.

 

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3 minutes ago, Matt_1979 said:

Disable first transfer windows so you can’t immediately plug any holes in your team, or spend £20m on that player you know is awesome. 
 

and the “what if I want to quick buy a striker” comment is still making me laugh. 

I always disable first transfer window and never buy players unless my scouts 'find 'them. So I won't sign Endrick for Liverpool, even though I know he's very good, until my scouts naturally find him. And I don't sack all my scouts and hire five-star replacements or anything unrealstic like that.

My 'what if I want to buy a quick striker' comment was in response to the 'solution' of hiding all attributes which isn't realistic. In the real world, a manager might well want a quick forward to play a particular tactic, and they wouldn't say to their scouts, get a load of forwards in for me to look at and I'll watch them sprint to work out which ones might be appropriate for my tactic.

Do you not find the game easy? And just for clarification, easy doesn't mean winning the Champions League in the first season (as that's impossible with 99% of teams in the game). Easy is overperforming expectations (whatever they are for that team) every season.

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9 minutes ago, Ferocious289 said:

Why are you acting like you're some Albert Einstein unique special  breed of genius because you won the title with Manchester United?

If you want a challenge start the game unemployed with no badges,or try working your way with a low to mid table club and then when you've won your 10 champions leagues in a row, which you haven't even shown pictures of you doing 10 seasons on the beta, then back come here and cry

I've not played as Utd, you've got me confused with the guy that started the thread. It's almost like you're not actually reading the comments and just saying what you want to say, irrespective of where the discussion is actually going. I imagine that mentiality could hold a person back in life?

This is the argument in a nutshell: lots of us massively overperform in the game (as in, every time we play the game we do unrealistically well with whichever team we play as) and would like the game to be better to make this not possible. For those that don't massively overperform, you don't need to concern yourself with this.

When I used to play Fifa, I was decent and played at maybe a medium level but there were lots of players that were a lot better than me. I was OK with that. I didn't argue they should have their top difficulty level taken away as I didn't need it.

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4 minutes ago, bahmet said:

What am I doing wrong?

You don't need difficulty levels in the game.

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2 minutes ago, Harrymcintyre said:

If genegerpress is too OP, then maybe try to win using different tactics. I am actively experimenting a lot these 2 weeks with what kinda works and what doesn’t with tactics that isn’t just gengerpressing. 

Yeah, not used genenpressing for a few years as agree it's OP.

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6 minutes ago, Ferocious289 said:

It's a game, if you have the best players, buy the best players, use the best tactics, then no it's not a suprise if you win the league and CL every season.

It's a bit ridiculous for you to say if you don't find the game too easy then don't discuss, when you're adovacting something be done about an aspect of the game which I and other posters dont see need to be rendered.

I go back to my earlier point. Your argument is like kids in the lower maths set at school saying there's absolutely no need for a higher maths set as they already find the basic maths hard enough. Some of us just found maths easy, man. Doesn't make us better human beings, we just find it easy and would like an appropriate challenge.

 

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3 minutes ago, SergeiG said:

 

The thing is, I don't remember FM being so easy when I started playing. I think after 2019 or so the AI became extra stupid. Maybe I am wrong.

But one of my favorite teams to play with was Barnet, and I remember after getting to the championship after some years I was just stuck there for years, fighting relegation battles for like 3-4 years and another 5 to get to mid-table, so I don't think it's Stockholm syndrome. Nostalgia maybe?

And yeah, maybe the AI should get an advantage if it can't compete with the human player? Why no? CIV is doing it...it's not a perfect system for sure but if the AI is struggling VS human players they need some help.

Yeah, I play Civ and the difficultly levels work absolutely fine (even though the players know it's just giving the AI an artificial boost).

Without the difficulty levels, Civ would be unplayable for competent players, as FM is becoming, really.

 

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6 minutes ago, Ferocious289 said:

Just because a club is predicted to finish 4-6th doesn't mean there isn't a high possibility of overachieving. Have you seen the stats of Uniteds squad? Do you want them nerfed so they can be a mid-table team?

The media prediction does not and nor should it be a limit for how far you can take your team

For non-league clubs I've seen results like this on reddit, so clearly their not finding the game too easy

If people want to play as Liverpool city barca they should expect to have advantages over the majority of teams on the game

 

'For non-league clubs I've seen results like this on reddit, so clearly their not finding the game too easy' --> oh, it's like some people are better at the game than others. Who knew?

Now, what does nearly every other game do when that happens?

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2 minutes ago, Ferocious289 said:

Just because a club is predicted to finish 4-6th doesn't mean there isn't a high possibility of overachieving. Have you seen the stats of Uniteds squad? Do you want them nerfed so they can be a mid-table team?

The media prediction does not and nor should it be a limit for how far you can take your team

For non-league clubs I've seen results like this on reddit, so clearly their not finding the game too easy

If people want to play as Liverpool city barca they should expect to have advantages over the majority of teams on the game

 

Do you even read the points people have made?

 - if you play as Liverpool, who should win one or two league titles out of four and  maybe 1-in-10 Champions Leagues in real life, it's very easy to win every league title and most Champions Leagues

Obviously Liverpool should win more matches than Villa, but they shouldn't be able to win the league every season.

If you don't find the game too easy, this isn't a discussion you need to be involved in.

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16 minutes ago, sthptngomad76 said:

I’ve been Wealdstone and Progresul Spartac, felt the same thing as OP. Haven’t tweaked my corners. 
I think we all want the same thing ultimately- an enjoyable, engaging, addictive game.

There’s just a sizeable proportion of this fanbase that isn’t feeling this at the moment that really only would be solved with scaleable difficulty levels. 

 

But unfortuantely we're held back by the not-very-good players who insist the game is plenty hard enough, thank you very much, and just say we're cheating or playing with too-good teams.

 

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27 minutes ago, dannyfc said:

How would you propose a difficulty level is implemented? AI teams get a boost to their attributes? More money? Better Newgens? 

All those solutions sounds gimmicky to me and would ruin the immersion. The unfortunate truth is AI just isn't anywhere near good enough yet to challenge a human in abstract concepts. That isn't a SIGames issue, that's an industry wide constraint hence why most games opt for giving the AI an unfair advantage to remedy. The only alternative is to handicap yourself, use a team with small budgets, restrictions on players you can buy, mods to disguise the data you can see. 

The top team problem is exacerbated by the fact the game cannot replicate all the real life challenges managers experience. Liverpool have a squad of elite talent who are completely suited to their style of play. Naturally all a player needs to do to secede is simply implement that style of football and maintain baseline morale in players so they perform their best. That's never going to be a difficult challenge for anyone other than complete beginners. 

The question then is how do you accurately replicate the real life struggles of management without making the game boring?

This season Liverpool are struggling due to the number of injuries, low morale, and inexplicable drops in key players form. All of which are difficult to implement in the game without frustrating the player. Injuries and inconsistent form are largely out of the players hands, so increasing this leads to complaints about the game "cheating" or being "FM'd". I think SIGames have previously said injury frequency is lower than real life for this reason. 

Morale management and squad unity is more interesting as to a certain extent its the biggest factor to real life success. Inspiring players and keeping the dressing room on side will ultimately make or break the success of a manager's reign. This is the area with the most scope for improvement in the series, but given this is largely dependent on human interactions the game will always struggle to replicate this in a satisfying way.

The player interactions just feel robotic and somewhat arbitrary, to the point I more or less ignore the function entirely as you're likely to create more issues than it's worth. Similarly with team talks and in-game shouts.  But again without huge advancements in AI, I have no idea on what the game can do to address this in and entertaining way. Would love to know what other people think would be an improvement, and if there are any other game examples that could be co-opted. How can you simulate charisma? Maybe introduce more RPG elements? Not sure. 

 

For me, off the top off my head, I'd be happy if there was a setting (or mod) that added +1 (or +2) onto every opponent player's attributes (and maybe + 5/10 onto condition) when I played them as a quick-fix to compensate for all the stuff I can do better than the AI.

Most players never need to touch that setting.  

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3 minutes ago, Ferocious289 said:

How can you play with Liverpool, the most op team in the game and complain about the game being too easy? It's like managing PSG, winning ligue 1 every season then saying the game isn't challenging

The game should provide a challenge, whoever you play. Yes, it's much easier to compete as a good team but then the goalposts move in terms of what is considered success.

Nobody is saying that good teams shouldn't be able to win more matches than poor teams. You'd have to be an idiot to suggest that.

What we are saying is:

 - if you play as Utd who should be finishing around 4th-6th, it's actually very easy to win the league in the first season

 - if you play as Liverpool, who should win one or two league titles out of four and  maybe 1-in-10 Champions Leagues in real life, it's very easy to win every league title and most Champions Leagues

 - if you play as a non-league team, it's easy to win five, six, seven promotions in a row

You must get that?

The PSG argument is slightly disingenuous as they are a nation-state competing in a farmers' league so not like the Premier League. But if you managed PSG in the game, and won maybe 10 out of of 12 Champions Leagues, as would be pretty doable, that would demonstrate that the game is too easy. 

Serious question: do you think that > 50% of the people that buy the game (Liverpool, City, Utd, Barca fans etc.) should never play the game as their favourite team?

 

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The whole argument against difficulty levels for me is like certain kids at school arguing we don't need different maths sets as they already find the basic maths hard enough.

That's exactly why you have different maths sets.

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46 minutes ago, harrycarrie said:

State of some replies in this thread is mad.

 

'Manage from the 27th tier of English football or do one' is such a lol answer.

It's like when you're trying to have a serious conversation about your team and then that guy at work comes over and says "wot we need is more tall players, get the ball in the mixer, none of this tactics rubbish"

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49 minutes ago, IrrelevantLion said:

The annual humblebrag thread 

We're not saying we're amazing, we're saying the game is so easy it makes us look amazing.

If you don't find it too easy, that's not a problem. This thread doesn't concern you.

But at least you got to use humblebrag again.

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20 minutes ago, Matt_1979 said:

Learn to play the game. 
 

Do what real managers do. Look at stats. Look at scout reports. 

Will do, thanks.

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6 minutes ago, Johnny Ace said:

Alright guys, can we calm it down a bit please, no need for the digs at one another 

Fair enough, I retract 'keyboard warrior.'

It's just frustrating that we can't have a serious discussion about the game being too easy without the only suggested solution being play as a random, poor team.