Do you 'cheat' at FM?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think we would all agree that ultimately 'beating' FM becomes a hollow victory if you 'cheat.'

I would however, be really interested to hear how many of you play the game absolutely without 'cheating.' I've put the word itself into quotes, as it's such an emotive term, and I think in a game that you are playing against the computer,

not involving other people there is no need to get majorly overwrought about it. In multiplayer games, it's a different story.

Also, there are arguably some 'grey areas. There is a pretty massive gradient from a sneaky glance at PA in the database or on a website, the odd cheeky revert, all the way up to FMRTE/database 'enhancing', extra manager-adding antics.

At the whitest extreme, those in the LLM community who believe in playing the game without 'outside knowledge' would hold that making use of anything your manager should not know

(a lot of in-game info comes into this category) in order to make decisions is 'cheating', including using scouts/star ratings etc.

From this perspective, any player recommendations, knowledge from other FM games or even from RL is forbidden.

My own personal failing is contract negotiations - I can't stand the infernal agents breaking these off in such an arbitrary fashion, so I tend to save before negotiations, so I can reload and try again if I make a wrong move.

I'm aware this gives me a big edge in an important aspect of the game, but I don't think I have a sufficient streak of masochism to play the game absolutely 'straight'.

The catch to allowing yourself some 'cheating' of course, is that its a very slipperly slope. If you are in the habit of reverting in trivial circumstances, you will almost certainly do it almost without thinking when your star striker breaks his leg.

I wonder if people be interested in the concept of 'enforcement' measures in future games - something which tallies 'suspiciously-timed' re-loads for example, which could then be viewed by other steam users?

I would expect this to be quite a useful aid to willpower.

What do you all think? Have other people struggled to quit using 'revert', or editing the db? Do you use shortlists of wonderkids? Do you even see that as 'cheating'?

[Shake Appeal]

Did plenty in the past, when I was younger, but since FM11 or so I've cut out every single thing that could be considered cheating and actually tried to make the game harder for myself by adopting LLM rules, etc.

Contract negotiations breaking down is definitely the thing that most tests my resolve, though.

[shaunwwfc]

I used to. But once you do, and you achieve what you wanted to achieve, you ultimately realised you haven't "achieved" it. You actually ruin any future good experience in the long run so I refrain from doing it at all costs.

[daylight]

Would rather cheat on the wife!

It's only a fair comment, I have known the game longer

Joking aside, no I don't cheat on the game.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wise words from both of you. (edit -all three of you!)

I guess it is something you have to grow out of. I think for me, blogging about my game might stop me cold - It would be sublimely ludicrous to cheat in a game you were blogging about.

[MasterOfSuspense]

The only thing I do is "tidy up" the positions of youth players coming through - like changing a D/WB R to just DR e.g. - some people regard this as cheating (something about redistribution of potential?)

[Latimerinho]

I usually add myself as a player, may occasionally knock up the odd attribute here and there so that I can sit, watch and only wish that it were all true...

I don't give myself 20's or anything like that, so on the scale of cheating I think what I do is perhaps quite minimal? :o

[Shake Appeal]

The only thing I do is "tidy up" the positions of youth players coming through - like changing a D/WB R to just DR e.g. - some people regard this as cheating (something about redistribution of potential?)

I assume you're using an editor to do this? How do you avoid seeing a whole load of other information, including CA/PA, when using an editor?

[Anonymous Coward]

Editing the db is a perilous one, I find. I'm quite liking the fact that you have to install it as an action in steam, makes it a more conscious decision, with full awareness of the evil it could unleash :-)

When I play as my local team, the temptation to 'correct' player positions and attributes in the DB tends to lead to an outbreak of kids with high random PA's in the U-19s...

[SmurfDude]

I used to reload from time to time, but not anymore. Cheating is a great way of wasting your money because you no longer get any satisfaction or enjoyment from playing. Accepting a loss to the team in 20th place but still emerging triumphant at the end of the season and winning the league is far more satisfying, because you did it the right way and there's no feeling of guilt.

[stevie_G_32201]

i used to sell my players to other teams for their entire transfer budget with 2 managers when i started back in cm3, but these days i just save and ragequit.

[SRL88]

I did when I was a kid, but not now.

[Anti Spiral]

I have a "main game" where I usually keep for many many seasons, this I of course do not cheat. However, if I'm on a really bad run, or not enjoying it, I sometimes start a brand new game and give my team a ridiculous budget so i can smash some teams. This lasts for about half a season when I go back to my proper game.

I have in the past (in my younger days) taken advantage of parts of the game, i.e. hundreds of youth friendlies against Castilla to get lots of money, giving players really small minimum release fee just before moving to a new club, but that's all in the past and I now spend longer understanding the game and making the most of it.

[isignedupfornorealreason]

I guess most people will say one thing or another is cheating...

I've used GenieScout plenty of times in the past. I have ragequit in frustration at times and that might have led to a result not being 'saved' *cough* ahem, though that kinda makes me feel very guilty y'know...

But generally, and especially for LLM games I don't cheat if at all.

[thomit]

Yes, I do. I use FM Genie Scout as my main scouting tool. It just makes the game even more enjoyable for me, so I'm not ashamed about it. As FM Genie no longer is able to give information about what price each player is available for, it has become less of a "cheat" ... which is good. But I still like to be able to use FM Genie to "cheat" in finding the perfect player, with perfect stats, and then try to get him to come to my club. Obviously, all these stats you would be able to get with just scouting the player normally - but it's the hidden stats I want access to. So being able to see the hidden stats - is this cheating? Of course it is. But it's a cheat that makes the game even more enjoyable for me, so ... easy choice. In addition, such a tool makes one able to spot the talents much quicker, and gives one a huge advantage in trying to get hold of these talents before anyone else does. I like this too.

However, I would absolutely not cheat this way if I were playing against other human players online. That would take much of the fun out of the game.

Cheating is harmless and perfectly fine if you play on your own - allthough you can easily overdo it, and be left with a sour taste after a while. Playing against others, cheating in any way is a complete no-no.

Btw; I would stop using FM Genie as soon as the in-game scouts would be able to give me info about hidden stats. I feel this is something scouts would actually do in real life; scouted enough, they would be able to get useful info about most, if not all of the hidden stats too. But the scout info as it is in the game now is not sufficient, in my view. Not detailed enough, and info that would be useful to have is not shown - not because the scout(s) does not have their view on it, but because the game deems it less important, and does not make room for it in the scout(s) reports! You can scout a player endlessly, and the scout reports still don't give you some very relevant info. So, more detailed scout reports, and more info, and FM Genie would be redundant.

[robwesty85]

In years gone by especially when I discovered the editor on CM97/98 I think it was I enjoyed getting all the best players at one club, for some reason back then I loved playing as Middlesbrough. So it would be a team of Barthez, Blanc, Zidane, Raul, Ronaldo etc etc with the added inclusion of me with all 20s! Lol. But that is pretty much the only thing I ever did as far as I can remember. I have never downloaded somebody elses tactic of the tactics forum because for me that is also a form of 'cheating' and no real satisfaction of winning with the so called super tactics.

[MasterOfSuspense]

I assume you're using an editor to do this? How do you avoid seeing a whole load of other information, including CA/PA, when using an editor?

you can hide certain columns of attributes in FMRTE when viewing the squad - in a player profile I have the window size set so I would have to scroll to the bottom to see CA/PA so I don't look at it

[TheBigBoss]

Wont lie I've done the odd rage quite but other than that no

[craiigman]

Well I don't use any third party things like Scout Genie or real time editors. However since football is an opinion based thing, if I feel SI don't get some player ratings wrong, even after positing in the threads about them, I will change them myself. But I never do anything unrealistic, it's just in my opinion some things are either rated too high or too low for some players, so I fix them.

I do use the forums/ sites for player recommendations, shortlists and stuff. But with shortlists it's only when I'm a smaller team looking for bargains and the scouts are terrible. When I'm a big team I don't use them and I go about it myself and then use player recommendations to finalise my deals.

I don't download tactics as I think it's just cheap. I'd rather make my own. However that being said I might download a few to look at how they work and if there is anything I want to implement into my own. But I usually just avoid.

the only other form of cheating I can think of is restarts/replays of games. Which I did do last year, but not many times. When I first started my Arsenal save I got battered 5-1 by Reading, which I am not going to accept under any circumstances. Which lead me to realise I was doing it all wrong and started again. I didn't restart many after that, I think maybe just once. But at the start when you are still working things out and a result like that happens, then I won't accept that.

[USMNT10]

I am a "fantasy" type player. I like to try different things and scenarios with different players and clubs.

For several months into FM14 I will be playing the game honest. Won't user any editors.

Then, like I did with FM12, I start to try different things, and try those "what ifs" scenarios. Like, what if Messi and Ronaldo were on the same team? What if Ronaldo when back to Man U? Also, I like to take a bottom league club in either England or Spain and put some undeveloped wonder kids on the team and bring them up through their career while also bringing this club up to higher levels.

I will also have a save where it is predominately developing United States citizens and building a dominate National Team. With these, I like to keep players domestic, so I will be bringing Altidore, Bradley, howard, etc back to a MLS team. I will also then periodically put young promising players and regens onto one squad, in which I manage and personally develop these players.

So my "cheating" isn't creating players will maxed out ratings or changing rating of current players, it is just me putting certain players on different clubs and seeing what I could do with it.

But like I said, I won't be doing all of that until a few months into the game. I want to do the dafuge challenge first and be complete honest with that save and challenge.

[Kenco]

From this perspective, any player recommendations, knowledge from other FM games or even from RL is forbidden.

Knowledge from real life is forbidden? That's crazy, so you wouldn't be able to sign any player you may have heard of?

I wonder if people be interested in the concept of 'enforcement' measures in future games - something which tallies 'suspiciously-timed' re-loads for example, which could then be viewed by other steam users?

I would expect this to be quite a useful aid to willpower.

What would be classed as a "'suspiciously-timed' re-load"? I ask because when I play FM, I often playin short bursts of 30 minutes or so, often meaning I only get to play one match per session. This means I load it up once or twice a week in game time, so will people suddenly think I'm cheating?

TBH if I wanted to cheat then I'd do it as I don't give two hoots what people I have never met think of me, so I'm not sure this would really stop people from doing so.

[Akuthia]

The only thing I do is "tidy up" the positions of youth players coming through - like changing a D/WB R to just DR e.g. - some people regard this as cheating (something about redistribution of potential?)

Not that this is related to cheating at all, but might I ask why? I prefer having my players be reasonably skilled at multiple positions, because I'm playing lower leagues (if you can call german d2 lower), and my budget doesn't allow me to carry enough subs for everywhere.

[MasterOfSuspense]

Not that this is related to cheating at all, but might I ask why? I prefer having my players be reasonably skilled at multiple positions, because I'm playing lower leagues (if you can call german d2 lower), and my budget doesn't allow me to carry enough subs for everywhere.

I just like to keep things simple - I never play with wing backs so no need to have a player that can play there or a midfielder who can play DM/M RLC/AM RLC/ST - just feel it looks "cleaner"

[Anonymous Coward]

Knowledge from real life is forbidden? That's crazy, so you wouldn't be able to sign any player you may have heard of?

What I think they mean by this is that they distinguish between what they know 'in game' and 'out of game' - for example, I might know a player is injury prone because he plays for my club in RL,

but its a hidden attribute in the game. The way the rule is phrased in the LLM guidelines puts its more clearly than I did:

Q: It’s impossible not to know about players in real-life from the media and such. How can we pretend not to know about them in the game?

A: Role play. In the game your manager doesn’t know anything about the real world – all his information comes from the gameworld’s media. It’s perfectly acceptable for your manager to take an interest in a player mentioned by the in-game media. It will be a matter for your conscience if you decide to go for a player you know to be good in real-life that your scouts don’t like the look of (plus there is no guarantee that the player will actually be any good in the game). If you truly embrace the LLM way of playing, the choice will be easy

What would be classed as a "'suspiciously-timed' re-load"?

It wouldn't be hard to write an autosave routine which 'offered' unsaved data - Ignoring the offer of unsaved progress would indicate a likelihood that somebody quit in order to reload.

[Kenco]

LLM sounds like a religious cult. Too many rules for me.

[MasterOfSuspense]

LLM sounds like a religious cult. Too many rules for me.

LOL - they are the ones who say tidying up positions is cheating - avoided that part of the forum ever since

[KDR]

Cheating (with or without quotations marks)...nope. Never have, never will, because ultimately you're only cheating yourself. I've been tempted, very sorely on a couple of occasions, but...any victory/glory after that wouldn't mean a thing. A case of "chuck all your medals and all your caps and all your pots and all your pans into the biggest [something] dustbin you can find, because you've never won any of them fairly".

I don't even like reloading after a crash dump!

(And, by not using real world knowledge to make signings in-game, I accidentally stick to LLM rules.)

[Soverntear]

Closest I come is "The Staines Open" a once a year league/cup with premiere teams. But seeing that one of the tips in game is to use pre season friendlies to make cash, I see it more as using sound advise from the game creators then cheating.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's an interesting one. There are other 'features' in game which are perhaps bending, rather than breaking the rules. For example:

• Adjusting the wage budget downwards before opening negotiations often results in the player demanding a lower wage to start with.
• 
  
• Setting an unrealistically high asking price on a player you don't want to sell - this pretty much always used to allow you to keep them indefinitely.
• 
  

I think the second of these has been mostly fixed now, not sure about the first though.

[Taxpayers_Money]

I cheat and hate myself for it! Usually start off with the best of intentions, get to the end of the season without having cheated needing to win my final game to get promoted, draw and then reload. At which point I am overwhelmed with regret and start the whole process over again. This both ruins my enjoyment of the game and stops me ever progressing past a few seasons. I even managed to get promoted without cheating in my first season and then cheat at the end of the second season, thereby wasting two seasons' worth of effort. If FM14 runs on my laptop I promise I'll turn over a new leaf...

[CMdan44]

I don't even like reloading after a crash dump!

Although some of the things I do might be considered cheating by some, I'm with you on this. It feels dirty, even though it's no fault of your own. I've lost some epic saves through not being mentally able to reload them after a crash dump.

[benallen002]

Yes, I have used 3rd party editors and scouts with every version of FM I have owned.

As someone in this thread has already said (albeit to prove the opposite point): I'm only cheating myself. So why would anyone else give a toss?

[Blanchflower1]

Yes, I cheat all the time. I use FMRTE to make all my players top notch. Perhaps in the future, I will stop doing it but it is so addictive!

[SpartyOn]

I've only cheated once. I started playing FM11 as a fairly clueless American, and my ignorance of the Bosman rule led to my best player getting poached on a free transfer. So I loaded from a previous save point and kept him.

Since then I've kept it clean, although I'm far from an LLM purist. The player search is my favorite screen in the game.

[Fox]

i save before every game just in case i lose. i dont consider it cheating. just good planning.

[OxfordUnitedFC]

i save before every game just in case i lose. i dont consider it cheating. just good planning.

That's only cheating if you reload when you lose one.

[fsquid]

The only thing I do is add my kids to the team I'm going to start out managing with their pictures. Usually give them the old -6 PA and let the game generate it. They love to look at their progress

[Dagenham_Dave]

Never cheated in the game, never will. I really don't see the point.

I've no issue with anyone who does unless they subsequently go online bragging about their achievements, which I'm fairly certain one or two on here do.

[MichaelBrown]

When I was younger I used to mess around with extra managers and downloading tactics, but I've cut that out now.

[Lord Dakier]

I hate cheating but do it often sometimes just simply raging after losing without saving. I'm struggling in a game with Port Vale where I really want to improve my LLM abilities.

Yet the thing that annoys me is people on here talking like they're amazing and then they manage teams like Barca. I loaded a quick game and didn't concede after 5 games where I set training ultra high with excess friendlies and half my team got injured come start of the season. No Neymar, Iniesta, Sanchez, Fabregas and Pedro. Won the supercup and holidayed the season but left the assman with my tactic. We finished second to Real Madrid. How can anyone when being a team that good?

The best managers can go to the lowest leagues and win them first or second season.

[Carmi88]

no external tools,no downloaded tactics, no reloading. All ruin the game

[nickdc]

My last save I used to look at ratings in the trial matches abroad which for some reason I couldn't send scouts too. I would then trial top performers.

I'd also blind trial many on the list of released players if they came from top PL clubs.

And finally I'd look to loan young players in say Arsenal reserves in the belief that they would be better than what I had, even without looking at their stats.

On hindsight this was cheating, to me any way. I'm strictly LLM in my ethos and I won't do the same for 14.

[DizzyPenguin]

Got very strong views on this.

I sometimes do the contract negotiations 'cheat' but that's only because I think in real life you would never get an agent saying "I've been backed into a corner, deal is off" and then ignoring you forever. I mean they might say that, but you would still have an opportunity to then say "Ok, ok... you win, I will pay slightly more and include such and such a clause" or something like that. The agent might be completely against the idea of agreeing terms by now, but they would still answer their phone and hear what you had to say. So I think a restart in that situation is acceptable and therefore not a cheat.

But that could just be my conscience speaking....

Other than that I never cheat, and find the game so much more rewarding. I posted a couple of threads earlier this year when my Newcastle team finished 4th but lost out on a Champs League place because the team who finished 5th won the actual CL - this happened TWICE, in CONSECUTIVE seasons but I never rage-quitted until the other team won the CL final. I accepted it as a bummer, but better luck next year, just like a real life manager would have to.

Likewise when I lose a Cup final, which has happened more than I've won them on the same Newcastle save, I feel proud to have reached the final more than I do gutted to have lost the final.

It's just the way I play, I like the realism. I think I'm a bit of a LLM manager without the stringency of playing by any "rules" .... plus they would probably stone me to death for the above contract negotiations reload confession.

[Boydy9]

I always go in and change the expansion capacity of Ibrox to 80k, year on year I get wound up that it's set to 64k when anyone who has ever been there must be able to see the vast space around the ground and potential to make it so much bigger

[Macshimmy]

The save options this year might help people to resist reverting - you can set to autosave every day in game to a single file.

That way, you can't revert.

You could still make manual backups every month or whatever, but you would lose so much progress by reverting, it would no longer be worth it.

[Akuthia]

Speaking of that auto save, I'd like to see an option to autosave after every game. Would definitely reduce the ragequit problems, while reducing on time saving (like when you've got a week or two between games)

[Guest]

10 year ago I used to cheat and enjoy it, I used to take control of multiple teams, sell all their best players at low prices to my main team while selling them all my crap for ridiculously high prices..

Then I stopped that and just reloaded results I didn't like, but the last 5 years I cant cheat at all as it ruins the enjoyment, but I did find it fun when I was younger.

[realtimshady]

There's two kinds of errors I encounter in football manager. The majority of them are "management errors" (e.g. I lost this game because I had player X and tactic Y wrong). Those I accept, even when it's painful. The second type are "interface errors", which I'm tempted to navigate around (e.g. what do you mean the Barca manager can't hire staff for Barca B? Lemme see that editor...)

I'm often tempted to reload when something goes wrong, but I always tell myself "Always forwards, never back" and it usually does the trick. I mean, I play the game to see where I end up, not to make sure I take the best route getting there. More basically, I want to PLAY, not load, re-load, re-load. I've discovered an exception to this too though, when converting players to staff. Since their attributes are determined largely randomly (an interface error), you can sometimes get results that disrupt the fantasy: Puyol, for example, should not emerge as a coach with 1 defending and 2 tactical coaching and tactical knowledge. That's so far beyond my ability to suspend disbelief, that I had to reload.

As for LLM-level purity, I am (at this point in my FM-life) not in the slightest bit interested.

[wazza]

I can't cheat at the game as feel too guilty.

I have a current dilemma - managing Stockport on the Beta who are a Professional Club and cannot sign non-contract players. The database shows 2 players who are non-contract in the squad I inherited. This is obviosuly an error on SI's part.

I have spent 4 days working out tactics, scouting players etc... putting in alot of leg work and signed some loan players on no salary to build the squad up. However I know my wages of my squad should be 50-60k more. I am already 12k over my budget.

Do I restart once the game is fully live and edit the database to show these two errors of non contract players as full time salaried staff or carry on knowing that my salary should be £50k higher than what it is.

If I kept going would it be classed as cheating and how can you justify it.

[CMdan44]

maybe those two players are really on non-contract terms? It's not impossible afaik for a pro club to sign players on non-contract. Wasn't Hargreaves on a non-contract at Man City? (Although I don't think that was the case in-game).