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FM2012 difficulty.

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How are you finding the difficulty on FM2012?  

1,760 members have voted

  1. 1. How are you finding the difficulty on FM2012?

    • The game is too easy.
      535
    • The difficulty is about right.
      1084
    • The game is too hard.
      142

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Leezoid

Leezoid

Posted
Posted

I don't post often, but I have to say i'm finding FM2012 much much easier than previous editions.

I started a game with New England in MLS, halfway though the season. With 14 games to go, we won the competition undefeated. (IRL New England finished dead last I think this year)

I took the USA under 23 team to olympic qualification, losing the final match to Mexico. (Before being randomly let go before the olympics and no replacement being hired...)

Now i'm four games into my 2nd season and am still undefeated with a career record so far of:

Played:22

Won:19

Drawn:2

Lost:1

Goals for:59

Against: 20

Win percentage: 86%

Now I sit here watching the games finish 3-0,4-0,6-0... it's kind of taking the challenge out of the game. I know I haven't exactly played that many games, but the apparent easiness is putting me off. :(

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Erimus1876

Erimus1876

Posted
Posted

egesagin, lee_uk, grep, alexyfoot, KUBI, milnerpoint, SeanNUFC, Matej, BiggusD et al...

Come on guys! Letsby Avenue. :D I could do with some feedback on wether AI match prep is the culprit so I can finally fix my save with FMRTE and get back to losing 20 in a row (oh I wish!).

milner I know you're an FMRTE user, give me your input mate. ;)

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alexyfoot

alexyfoot

Posted
Posted
egesagin, lee_uk, grep, alexyfoot, KUBI, milnerpoint, SeanNUFC, Matej, BiggusD et al...

Come on guys! Letsby Avenue. :D I could do with some feedback on wether AI match prep is the culprit so I can finally fix my save with FMRTE and get back to losing 20 in a row (oh I wish!).

milner I know you're an FMRTE user, give me your input mate. ;)

Sorry, I don't use FMRTE. Never have and probably never will :) Just finished 2nd season after my promotion to 2nd German - 14/18 with prediction 17th. I am satisfied. Had some rough patches and some good spells...however, I have the gut feeling this season I will be fighting for promotion as it usually happens. I'd be pleasantly surprised if I don't and the AI proves better than I rate it :)

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phnompenhandy

phnompenhandy

Posted
Posted

Egad, you have it Erimus. NAIL. ON. HEAD.

Here's what I've just found (sorry, can't get the hang of posting screenies)

I'm on 17 July 2012 - date of first pre-season friendlies. I went through a bunch of the clubs - one from Premier League, Championship, League Two. BSN, Scotland and a Russian club (I don't have Russia loaded).

In EVERY case I see the exact same: Tactic 1 - every single bar is maxed out, 100%. And ZERO for 2nd and 3rd tactic.

The only exception was a club below BSN/BSS level (I don't have a lower leagues file loaded so it isn't playable) which has low figures for the primary tactic (and nothing for the others)

Remember this is the very start of pre-season. For the human manager the players forget much of their familiarity and have to relearn it, but the AI teams are perfect.

Remember also this is the start of the second season.

Therefore, this isn't evidence that proves the game is easier for the human manager, but it is proof that the coding is awry for AI match prep. Badly awry.

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Keyzer Soze

Keyzer Soze

Posted
Posted
Thanks, so that says its not just my save then. If AI match prep and tactics have a significant impact on what happens out on the pitch, this could be the smoking gun.

This must be confirmed first by SI, because this could be a little bug in this year Fmrte.

But, if this is confirmed, that something very odd is happening with the match preparation of AI teams. If is this as any consequence with the "ease" that some users have been experience... yet to be confirmed.

Anyway, nice detective work Erimus! :applause:

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upthetoon

upthetoon

Posted
Posted

Great work Erimus1876. I think you have fished out the problem and its not that we are getting better at the game. The coding for AI tactic has gone wrong, which is making the game so easy. Hope SI can acknowledge this and tell us they will fix it. The proof is staring down their face now.

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Matej

Matej

Posted
Posted
egesagin, lee_uk, grep, alexyfoot, KUBI, milnerpoint, SeanNUFC, Matej, BiggusD et al...

Come on guys! Letsby Avenue. :D I could do with some feedback on wether AI match prep is the culprit so I can finally fix my save with FMRTE and get back to losing 20 in a row (oh I wish!).

milner I know you're an FMRTE user, give me your input mate. ;)

Hi m8, ill send you PM, But this, what you discovered is SICK. Now Im even more upset. :( PaulC is prob in bed right now, but we really need answer about this in next few days from SI. How did they miss AI match prep. bug? Well, anyway, they must fix this NOW , because its prob biggest reason why game is so easy. BIg bug, really big bug.

Btw, im playin Skyrim last 5 hours, its great. :)

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wwfan

wwfan

Posted
Posted

@ Erimus

Can you do a test for me? Nuke your set piece settings by keeping your DCs and tall threats back. Play 3-4 games and keep a note of your conversion ratio in each. Then post the result here.

Probably best to have only an average free kick taker take the kicks as well.

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Erimus1876

Erimus1876

Posted
Posted
@ Erimus

Can you do a test for me? Nuke your set piece settings by keeping your DCs and tall threats back. Play 3-4 games and keep a note of your conversion ratio in each. Then post the result here.

Probably best to have only an average free kick taker take the kicks as well.

Will do. But it won't be for a few hours yet. I'll have the results posted around noon (UK time).

By the way, all my set pieces are left on default 'mixed' settings, but I'll make sure all threats are back in defence when I have a corner/free kick. What team should I be, or doesn't it matter? The team I am currently is very poor attribute-wise (9th tier of the English league structure).

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wwfan

wwfan

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Posted
Will do. But it won't be for a few hours yet. I'll have the results posted around noon (UK time).

By the way, all my set pieces are left on default 'mixed' settings, but I'll make sure all threats are back in defence when I have a corner/free kick. What team should I be, or doesn't it matter? The team I am currently is very poor attribute-wise (9th tier of the English league structure).

Whatever team you are playing with currently. If you have an rolling save from earlier in the 90/410 season, replaying the games and comparing the conversion ratios with their parallel games would be really useful.

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lee_uk

lee_uk

Posted
Posted

so why have AI teams laughable MP stats as shown in pics by erimus and FM11 seem right?

something must have changed between the 2 FM versions?

Sorry Erimus,i have never used FMRTE at all,but find your investigations eye opening!!

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Erimus1876

Erimus1876

Posted
Posted

I've holidayed 6 months into my 2nd season to see how AI match preperation and tactics develop.

Here's Man Utd (AI), in January 2013, a good 18 months into the game...

manutdsea2.jpg

Chelsea...

chelseasea2.jpg

Barcelona...

barcasea2.jpg

At the rate of improvement its going to take 4 or 5 seasons before the AI has fully trained all its tactics to the proficiency the human manager can in less than 1 season. And thats just for the best teams who have the best coaches and best training facilities. I'm not sure how long it will take all the smaller teams to catch up? Maybe 10 seasons?

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Erimus1876

Erimus1876

Posted
Posted

Here's my teams tactical training at the 18 month stage (notice the 1st one isn't fully complete as I switched tactics back in October 2012, but it soon caught up).

southbanksea2.jpg

And the screenshot below is typical of the AI teams in my division. Okay it may not be a smoking gun but I do wonder if the reason I finished 2nd with one of the worst teams in the league is because my team is more tactically astute than the other 23 AI teams I played against :(

bishopsea2.jpg

Could this explain the following scenario?:

The people finding the game a normal challenge have been playing against AI teams that, on the whole, have stuck to their primary tactic throughout a match. Even though this primary tactic isn't trained as well as it was in FM11, its still much better than them using their 2nd and 3rd tactics aganist you. And those of us who have experienced easy games could be the unlucky ones who have gone up against AI that has used those untrained 2nd and 3rd tactics against us, or at least switched to them during a match?

Of course, all this depends on wether FMRTE is returning accurate data or not and wether MP has that much of an influence on how the AI plays against us. So yes, its still all speculative in my opinion.

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PoolFan

PoolFan

Posted
Posted
I'm looking at all the saves an pkms I have been sent and where an area of the game can be tweaked without unbalancing things for the majority they will be.

As I stated earlier, I want to reduce shelf life of extremes of morale and see if that helps, as well as make team talks a bit harder the lower the managers' reputation in relation to his players. At this stage I honestly haven't found much more to go on at least in terms of the match engine.

I dont have a timeline for this at present as its vital we test it properly given we believe the vast majority of users are very happy with this release.

Well I have found this version of FM to be by far the most enjoyable I have played in MANY years. Please don't turn the game into a mystic meg style try and guess the correct option at teamtalks or when talking to players. For me this is exactly what was wrong with the previous incarnations of FM, they relied WAY too much upon motivating your team through a series of obscure and bizzare phrases.

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jro1982

jro1982

Posted
Posted

This is, by far and away, the easiest version of FM, and something does seem to be wrong.

As Chelmsford City, I've played 17 games now in the 1st season, and won a remarkable 15 of them, 1 draw and 1 defeat. I've NEVER changed tactics at all, and only signed some moderately decent players.

I even decided to do a small test, and played the last game against 5th place Salisbury City, with EVERY player out of position, including goalkeeper. Still the same tactic I've used throughout the season so far (straightforward 4-4-2).

The result? I won the game 4-1. With EVERY player out of position.

I used to be very average in previous versions...which I liked, because I had to work dam hard to find success. With this version, I've taken over Chelmsford, signed maybe 4 average squad players, whacked 4-4-2 in as my formation, and then just proceeded to hammer teams. I don't need to do anything at all, it seems.

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stf1979

stf1979

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Posted
This is, by far and away, the easiest version of FM, and something does seem to be wrong.

As Chelmsford City, I've played 17 games now in the 1st season, and won a remarkable 15 of them, 1 draw and 1 defeat. I've NEVER changed tactics at all, and only signed some moderately decent players.

I even decided to do a small test, and played the last game against 5th place Salisbury City, with EVERY player out of position, including goalkeeper. Still the same tactic I've used throughout the season so far (straightforward 4-4-2).

The result? I won the game 4-1. With EVERY player out of position.

I used to be very average in previous versions...which I liked, because I had to work dam hard to find success. With this version, I've taken over Chelmsford, signed maybe 4 average squad players, whacked 4-4-2 in as my formation, and then just proceeded to hammer teams. I don't need to do anything at all, it seems.

Same problem with all my saves... :(

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SeanNUFC

SeanNUFC

Posted
Posted
This is, by far and away, the easiest version of FM, and something does seem to be wrong.

As Chelmsford City, I've played 17 games now in the 1st season, and won a remarkable 15 of them, 1 draw and 1 defeat. I've NEVER changed tactics at all, and only signed some moderately decent players.

I even decided to do a small test, and played the last game against 5th place Salisbury City, with EVERY player out of position, including goalkeeper. Still the same tactic I've used throughout the season so far (straightforward 4-4-2).

The result? I won the game 4-1. With EVERY player out of position.

I used to be very average in previous versions...which I liked, because I had to work dam hard to find success. With this version, I've taken over Chelmsford, signed maybe 4 average squad players, whacked 4-4-2 in as my formation, and then just proceeded to hammer teams. I don't need to do anything at all, it seems.

Ah, the out of position thing again, this time with a better test. Send that to PaulC if you can please because that is not what i'd call 'the most realistic version ever'. I might try this out of position thing for a laugh one time to. On fm10(and i bet fm11) this wouldn't work.

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alexyfoot

alexyfoot

Posted
Posted

I keep seeing the same argument about 12 being the same as 11.3. Since when 11.3 became the benchmark that we have to go for in every following version. We have been experiencing graduate easing for several versions now and even if 12 was as easy as 11.3 (which I think we established already it isn't), that would not be good enough for quite a lot of us...I personally would expect something better from the newer version, not something that at best is as good as the previous one - makes absolutely no commercial sense. While there have been other improvements in gameplay, the most major issue is getting even larger...so what is the answer to our questions - "it should be very similar to 11.3". Are we supposed to accept that as a positive answer?

Apperently, the only way to enjoy FM12 is to start in lower division, promote unexpectedly with a mediocre team so that in Season 2 you will struggle a bit due to the massive difference in resources between your club and the others in the higher division. However, this lasts 1 (2 seasons max) - then you promote again. This limits the players' choice of clubs quite a bit and you basically know what is going to happen next season. Not goo enough, simply not good enough.

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lee_uk

lee_uk

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Posted
I've asked for a pkm. There is zero reason why it would work any differently between 11.3 and 12.0, but if you want to try to disprove that I'll look at any results you find.

hasnt Erimus already disproved this??

look at the MAJOR differences in MP from FM 11 to 12??.....cant be coincidence this time!!

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grep

grep

Posted
Posted

If I understood it right the familiarities within FM12 AI teams are much lower than FM11, correct ? ( after roughly a season )

Does this happen for AI teams correct ?

Does a human team familiarity behave the same between a season of FM11 and FM12 ?

If it happens only for AI teams it is a proof something is deeply wrong, if it happens also for human teams it may be proportional so everybody ( AI and human teams ) gain familiriarities slower and this may it is not an issue.

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Erimus1876

Erimus1876

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@ Erimus

Can you do a test for me? Nuke your set piece settings by keeping your DCs and tall threats back. Play 3-4 games and keep a note of your conversion ratio in each. Then post the result here.

Probably best to have only an average free kick taker take the kicks as well.

Ok mate I've played 4 games with my four tallest players (2 CD's and 2 CF's) staying back at corners and freekicks.

Game 1: 0-0 Draw

My Team... 5 corners, 0 DFKs. No goals scored from setpieces. Shots at goal 13, on target, 2.

AI Team.... 4 corners, 2 DFKs. No goals scored from setpieces. Shots at goal 5, on target 2.

Game 2: 2-1 Win

My Team... 2 corners, 1 DFKs. No goals scored from setpieces. Shots at goal 13, on target 2.

AI Team.... 4 corners, 0 DFKs. No goals scored from setpieces. Shots at goal 15, on target 6.

Game 3: 3-3 Draw

My Team... 2 corners, 0 DFKs. No goals scored from setpieces. Shots at goal 15, on target 7.

AI Team.... 4 corners, 2 DFKs. 1 goal scored from a DFK. Shots at goal 8, on target 3.

Game 4: 1-0 Win

My Team... 1 corners, 0 DFKs. No goals scored from setpieces. Shots at goal 8, on target 3.

AI Team.... 2 corners, 0 DFKs. No goals scored from setpieces. Shots at goal 9, on target 0.

Overall for my team:

My team had 10 corners and 1 DFK, no goals scored from any of them.

49 shots at goal, 14 on target, 6 goals scored.

Here are the 4 pkm's if you need to look at them in finer detail.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=CPIPO821

Cheers :)

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Erimus1876

Erimus1876

Posted
Posted
If I understood it right the familiarities within FM12 AI teams are much lower than FM11, correct ? ( after roughly a season )

Does this happen for AI teams correct ?

Does a human team familiarity behave the same between a season of FM11 and FM12 ?

If it happens only for AI teams it is a proof something is deeply wrong, if it happens also for human teams it may be proportional so everybody ( AI and human teams ) gain familiriarities slower and this may it is not an issue.

As far as I can tell its only an AI problem. It doesn't effect human players match prep / tactics in FM12. But it still needs further looking into to see if this is the cause of "easy game syndrome" or if its something completely different , so even I say its not proved yet. Just looks very promising at the moment. If I can be bothered I'm going to make all the AI teams in my league have full AI match prep on all three of their tactics, using FMRTE, and replay my season. I finished 2nd.... media prediction was 21 out of 23 (not 14th as I first thought) first go around playing against AI with MPs similar to the Bishop Auckland screenshot posted earlier.

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Vlahka

Vlahka

Posted
Posted

I wish my game behaved the same way as everyone elses. First season 6th and fired with liverpool. Second attempt, 15 wins, 2 losses. Then 1 win in 8 games. I'm not crap at the series but from what most of you are saying tactics arent important and playing players out of position can get you wins with 1 loss a season. Maybe I'm not using some winning tactic everyone else read up on or something. Or everyones playing UTD and chelsea.

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SeanNUFC

SeanNUFC

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Posted
I wish my game behaved the same way as everyone elses. First season 6th and fired with liverpool. Second attempt, 15 wins, 2 losses. Then 1 win in 8 games. I'm not crap at the series but from what most of you are saying tactics arent important and playing players out of position can get you wins with 1 loss a season. Maybe I'm not using some winning tactic everyone else read up on or something. Or everyones playing UTD and chelsea.

Liverpool are apparently a crap team to manage in this.

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Vlahka

Vlahka

Posted
Posted

Thanks SI. No really. 100% realistic with your Liverpool setting.

So I was testing something. Taking into account my glorious half season and then 9 games of pure rubbish in a row, I let my assistant manager take over. He won his first match, then his second. So I went on holiday for a month because I wasnt in the mood to really play the game after having 3 players I wanted to sign not be able to come because their agents refused to budge on their 3-4mill pay bonus. Imagine my surprise to find that during that month holiday rival teams had pinched 7 of my staff. I've never seen that happen before in any of the other games ever.

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THOG

THOG

Posted
Posted
I wish my game behaved the same way as everyone elses. First season 6th and fired with liverpool. Second attempt, 15 wins, 2 losses. Then 1 win in 8 games. I'm not crap at the series but from what most of you are saying tactics arent important and playing players out of position can get you wins with 1 loss a season. Maybe I'm not using some winning tactic everyone else read up on or something. Or everyones playing UTD and chelsea.

As I mentioned upthread, I'm playing Liverpool and I think the difficulty here has mostly to do with the team's extremely high reputation and relatively mediocre players. I went and tried out Tottenham for a bit last night and had none of the problems I'm having with Liverpool. The Liverpool squad is just extremely difficult to motivate. This is most noticeable when you play against small teams 1 or 2 levels below you. With Tottenham, I crushed Championship/League One sides in preseason friendlies with scores like 6-0, 5-1, etc. With Liverpool, the team is just terminally complacent no matter what team talk you give and they just ball watch while some nameless striker casually strolls into the net, stopping to drink tea with Reina along the way.

The flipside is that they tend to overperform against big teams since they're not overawed by the reputation difference. I beat Man Utd at Old Trafford without much trouble and even took out Real Madrid in a friendly, but on the whole, those matches are worth just as much as matches against Norwich.

Sadly, this is pretty realistic...

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Vlahka

Vlahka

Posted
Posted

What would be really nice is to have the option to start the game pre-player purchase for the season. For example if I was signed on instead of the current manager, I wouldnt have the players they'd bought in july/august, and instead would have the money to buy players I'd want. I dont see why they should be there if I'm starting at a time they'd never been bought.

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Coentrao

Coentrao

Posted
Posted

Just like on FM11 i went from winning against every team to just being complete crap at least this time i guess team meetings help to turn this around..

But i don't like these extremes, either you are the best team on the world or just the worse, there doesn't seem to exist a middle ground.

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Erimus1876

Erimus1876

Posted
Posted
Erimus, i notice the exact same thing with FMRTE and AI's match prep, no point uploading screen shots as they look the same as you guys have above, good work digging that up, i wonder if it is contributing towards the overall issue.

I'm not so sure how much its contributing (if at all). I did a couple of tests, maxed out my next 5 opponents match prep and promptly failed to win a game against any of them;

0-2 lost, 1-3 lost, 1-3 lost, 1-2 lost, 1-1 draw. Dropped from 4th in the table to 8th by the end of it.

So I decided to run a test vs the same team over and over again, a team just 3 points behind me in the table, so pretty much on the same level. To reduce the influence of morale, fitness, and condition, I made them all the same on both teams with fmrte. I played 5 games vs the normal AI MP, then improved their MP in fmrte, and played 5 more to see if there was any difference. There was, but not a significant one. The most telling thing was the press made my opponents odds on favorites in all 10 matches, not giving me a prayer they said I wouldn't get anything from the match, but I got something from 8 out of the 10 games.

Big screenshot alert >

testzmu.jpg

Results vs Normal AI MP:

0-0 draw

2-1 win

1-0 win

0-1 lost

1-1 draw

Results vs Improved AI MP:

1-1 draw

0-1 lost

0-0 draw

2-2 draw

1-1 draw

Here are the 10 pkm's if anyone wants to look at them: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=KSEOYKHI

All a bit too inconclusive to be honest, maybe a much longer season-long test is in order. But I think I'll wait for SI's patch now :confused:

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Matej

Matej

Posted
Posted
As I said earlier in the thread neither Riz nor myself have seen anything MP related in the pkms we have looked at that suggests its any kind of "smoking gun".

Ok, maybe its not "smoking gun", but its really weird that MP of AI is so bad this year. I mean, their 2nd and 3rd is almost 0!! How that happened? In FM11 was fine. Whenever we find something and we think its big, you say it isnt. If moral is not important in game, if MP is not important in the game, then whats important?

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Erimus1876

Erimus1876

Posted
Posted
Erimus1876- yeah m8, you done more then enough, get some rest and wait for the patch. You done more in last few weeks then people with 5 000 posts. Go play Skryim, its great. :) O, and they have difficulty levels there, hehe.

Skyrim? I don't think my old laptop could handle it lol :D

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themadsheep2001

themadsheep2001

Posted
Posted
Ok, maybe its not "smoking gun", but its really weird that MP of AI is so bad this year. I mean, their 2nd and 3rd is almost 0!! How that happened? In FM11 was fine. Whenever we find something and we think its big, you say it isnt. If moral is not important in game, if MP is not important in the game, then whats important?

They balance together, no factor really overrides the others

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