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Is FMM too easy?


Is FMM too easy?  

93 members have voted

  1. 1. Is FMM too easy?

    • YES - FMM is too easy! I play with the enhanced match engine
      52
    • YES - FMM is too easy! I play with the original match engine
      3
    • NO - FMM is not too easy! I play with the enhanced match engine
      32
    • NO - FMM is not too easy! I play with the original match engine
      6


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Some users say the game is way too easy this year. Others, like me, can't understand what they're talking about ...

So here's a poll - let's vote and see what the majority thinks! 

FWIW - I tend to go LLM on the enhanced engine, and I don't find that easy at all. I can usually get results against equal teams (won promotion from L2 with Cambridge, yay), but whenever I face stronger opponents I get totally destroyed. I've seen screenshots of users beating Real Madrid with a team from .. Australia? I could never do that, I don't understand how it is even possible. I would probably have lost 1-5, haha. But lets hear it! If you find the game very easy, it might be interesting if you could drop some details from your game, eg. tactics, do you play with any unlockables such as Sugar Daddy, do you have any tricks to complete transfers .. anything to help the devs tune the game.

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If you're an experienced player of FMM, the game is way too easy. I implore SI to either make the game more difficult or to add some kind of difficulty setting for experienced players because I can see myself playing this game for 4-5 months and then giving up on it because there's no real challenge to it.

With regards to your situation @Footix, you need to consider the following:

  • Does your formation suit the players you have?
  • Do you assign the correct player roles to the players you have?
  • Does the team shape and tactical options you employ compliment your formation and player roles?
  • How does the team shape and tactical options you employ match up against the AI's tactics?

So for example:

  • Don't try and fit your players into a formation unless they're suited to it. If you have only one good striker, don't play a formation with two or three strikers. If you have really good wingers, play a formation that has width. If you have a lot of creative midfielders, consider a formation that utilises at least two advanced playmakers. If you have a weak defence, play with three Centre backs and maybe prop up the defence with some steel in midfield.
  • Player roles are very important. Each player will have a preferred position but make sure they have the appropriate stats for it. So if you want to play with a BWM, does he have good strength, tackle, and stamina? If you want to play with wingers, do they have good pace, dribble and crossing? If their skill ratings don't tie up with the role you assign to them, they won't do the job well. Make sure the team is balanced as well. If you play with too many attack minded players, you will leave yourself exposed defensively i.e. a midfield full of creative players will be unable to cover your defence in the way a BWM would. Similarly, if you play with too many defensive players, your strikers will be starved of the crosses, passes and through balls they need to score.
  • Team shape and tactical options should mirror the strengths of your squad. So if you play with a high pressing tactic, do your players have high ratings in stamina? If you select through balls as one tactical option, do your players have the creative skills, such as high passing, decisions, and creativity, to make this option work? If you have a high defensive line, do your defenders have good pace and positioning ratings to make this work?
  • Always look at how the AI is playing. If they're attacking and are the stronger side, play a shape that will counteract this (so counter or defensive). If you're the stronger side, play a positive tactic that takes the game to them. If the AI is playing narrow, consider play with width. If the AI is playing wide, consider using the through ball option (if you have the players that can do that job i.e. good passing skills and creativity). It's all about counteracting what the AI is doing.

With regards to transfers, I personally don't think the scouts do a very good job and so I often don't need them. In fact, I think this is one of the areas in FMM that makes the game very easy. Often I am able to strengthen my squad with players by going to the player search screen. You carry out a search for a player you need based on selecting a minimum attribute rating. So if I wanted to buy myself a winger, I would do a search for a player with a minimum rating of 12 in areas such as crossing, pace, dribbling, stamina, and then see which players come up in the results. Obviously depending on your status as a club will depend on your minimum rating. You mentioned you play with Cambridge, so maybe the minimum rating would be 10 or 11. Leave 'interested players on' to see how many players are willing to join you (which makes signing them easier) and if no player is interested, turn this option off and then filter your search based on your transfer budget. I usually find clubs are willing to sell and players are willing to join if you offer more money than they currently earn. This is all depended on your transfer and wage budget of course. Also, always keep an eye out for free transfers. You can sign some decent players for nothing - especially after the first season.

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I have to admit I never paid much attention to what the opposition was doing. I tend to focus on my own team and finding a suitable setup. 

I tried using your tips for a few games now and it seems to be working.. Although I've had a great season with 5 defeats in 38 games, so I might have won these 'tests' anyway. 

Seems like bit of a 'cheat' though, constantly tapping the opposition button to see what they're doing and adjusting accordingly?.. Maybe some of that info shouldn't be available, such as which roles the opponent is using. 

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I'd like an option saying 'FMM is easy', not 'FMM is too easy' because I do loose matches.

Tbh I am a lazy FMM player.
I don't pay any attention to opposition tactics - I only focus on away/home.
I play the same tactic for all matches - I only changed mentality from control to counter if it's a stronger opponent.
I also use AssMan to set players. I rarely set the players myself - I only do this if the AssMan selects a player with low condition or if I really want a specific player to play.
Transfer wise, I go for players with pace and general good stats.

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7 hours ago, Footix said:

I have to admit I never paid much attention to what the opposition was doing. I tend to focus on my own team and finding a suitable setup. 

I tried using your tips for a few games now and it seems to be working.. Although I've had a great season with 5 defeats in 38 games, so I might have won these 'tests' anyway. 

Seems like bit of a 'cheat' though, constantly tapping the opposition button to see what they're doing and adjusting accordingly?.. Maybe some of that info shouldn't be available, such as which roles the opponent is using. 

Looking at the opposition tactics is really not cheating. For one, your scout will, before the match, give you an idea which tactics your opponent will be playing. Point two, imagine yourself being a real-life manager sitting in the dugout during a match. By observing what the opposition are doing, you will gain an understanding of the tactics they are using and so will therefore be able to adapt your own tactics accordingly (whenever I go to a Spurs match, I observe the opposition to see what tactics and player roles are being used). Now think about FMM. You clicking on the opposition tactics button during a match is FMMs way of you being able to observe what the opposition is doing. The match engine can only tell you so much so you need an opposition tactics button to give you an idea of what you're up against.

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Out of interest - any chance of people indicating how many seasons in they are? (its generally easiest if you're using an established team and most challenging when your starting team are retiring and you're balancing the change over imho).

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40 minutes ago, Marc Vaughan said:

Out of interest - any chance of people indicating how many seasons in they are? (its generally easiest if you're using an established team and most challenging when your starting team are retiring and you're balancing the change over imho).

Well I started as Atlanta United in the MLS and within the first two seasons, I won five trophies. Judging by the board's aims of achieving a mid-table position, I definitely over-achieved during my first season.

But as you might know @Marc Vaughan, I am a long-time player of FMM and I have raised the issue of FMM being too easy since the 2011 or 2012 version. My last decent career was during FMM 2017, and I took a side promoted to the Vanarama South League all the way to the Premier League in back to back seasons. I found the game to be so frustratingly easy. I was beating Premier League sides in cup competitions whilst competing in the Vanarama Premier and in League 2. Although I am only three seasons into my first career on FMM 2018, I feel I have seen enough to suggest that the difficulty level for 2018 isn't going to be much different to 2017 or previous versions.

I have my theories for why FMM is easy. For example,  I'm not confident the AI is smart enough in the use of its tactics and I have always been able to acquire decent players on a limited budget far too easily by simply using the player search function (have never really needed my scouts).  But I don't wish to sound overly critical. I appreciate the FMM team is relatively small when compared to it's bigger FM brother and I still feel that FMM is the best game out there of its type. In fact, the reason why I spend so much time on these forums feeding back my experiences is because I am such a big fan of the game. I just wish FMM would offer more of a challenge to us experienced types. 

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 I graduated to FMT as those on this board may know and in my 1st season in the VNN i cleared out most of my roster and brought guys in for about 75 british pounds/week and i got 3rd (lost in playoff final)

so while FMM was easy (and still might be) i think FMM/FMT can be easy if you know what youre doing 

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Here's another example of FMM being too easy - an example I have experienced frequently.

As manager of Atlanta United, I have to deal with the issue of international players leaving for international duty during the MLS season. This means a large proportion of my best players can be unavailable for 2-3 games at different periods of the season.

So I replace my top players with weaker squad players and hope that I can remain competitive during the absence of my top players. In my career so far, I don't think I've lost a match when faced with this situation. In my last match, I beat a third place team 4-0 and my 2nd choice striker scored a hat-trick. Admittedly, the players I've brought in are decent enough but I often find (especially during the 1st season when my squad depth was so much weaker) that it's business as usual.

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  • SI Staff

We think the next update should be more challenging based on how we have found it internally. Will be interested to see what people make of it. Certainly I found it harder to keep consistent clean sheets or to score as freely.

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14 hours ago, Alari Naylor said:

We think the next update should be more challenging based on how we have found it internally. Will be interested to see what people make of it. Certainly I found it harder to keep consistent clean sheets or to score as freely.

Look forward to trying it out.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • SI Staff

Incidentally Mr Dean - based on your scouting comments, do you use attribute masking? ... if not why not? (as that's intended to make scouts more useful and the game more realistic as no manager irl knows every player).

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5 hours ago, Marc Vaughan said:

Incidentally Mr Dean - based on your scouting comments, do you use attribute masking? ... if not why not? (as that's intended to make scouts more useful and the game more realistic as no manager irl knows every player).

Hi Marc. Yes I use attribute masking. When clicking on a player and seeing their missing stats, using the scout is very useful (well more than useful, it's an absolute necessity) but I don't find scouts to be as useful as they could be. I find using the player search menu more effective and reliable than sending out a scout on assignment. Obviously if I come across a player where the stats are missing, the scouts are invaluable but I don't often need to do this.

EDIT: just to add Marc, maybe when the 'mask player attributes' is on, using the player search menu to filter players by a list of chosen attributes should be unavailable/switched off. It seems to be an area of conflict. On one hand you have deliberately chosen to mask the attributes of players but on the other hand, you can still search for a range of unscouted players by their attributes.

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2 hours ago, Lillywhite Dean said:

Hi Marc. Yes I use attribute masking. When clicking on a player and seeing their missing stats, using the scout is very useful (well more than useful, it's an absolute necessity) but I don't find scouts to be as useful as they could be. I find using the player search menu more effective and reliable than sending out a scout on assignment. Obviously if I come across a player where the stats are missing, the scouts are invaluable but I don't often need to do this.

EDIT: just to add Marc, maybe when the 'mask player attributes' is on, using the player search menu to filter players by a list of chosen attributes should be unavailable/switched off. It seems to be an area of conflict. On one hand you have deliberately chosen to mask the attributes of players but on the other hand, you can still search for a range of unscouted players by their attributes.

I think it makes sense being able to use the player search also with attribute masking on because for some players you can already see some stats so it would help you narrow down your search rather than scouting the whole players in the database 

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Yes that's true @DarJ. I guess if I were a manager, I wouldn't need to send a scout out to watch Christiano Ronaldo because everyone knows how good he is. There are players that managers are clearly aware of due to fame and match familiarity. However, attribute masking is there to make FMM a little more challenging and it encourages you to utilise your scouts to find what you're looking for. I just seem to have a lot of success using the player search menu rather than sending out a scout on assignment so attribute masking doesn't disadvantage me in any way.

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3 hours ago, Lillywhite Dean said:

Yes that's true @DarJ. I guess if I were a manager, I wouldn't need to send a scout out to watch Christiano Ronaldo because everyone knows how good he is. There are players that managers are clearly aware of due to fame and match familiarity. However, attribute masking is there to make FMM a little more challenging and it encourages you to utilise your scouts to find what you're looking for. I just seem to have a lot of success using the player search menu rather than sending out a scout on assignment so attribute masking doesn't disadvantage me in any way.

Have you tried using it in lower league saves?

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19 minutes ago, DarJ said:

Have you tried using it in lower league saves?

Yes I have. I've been playing FMM since it first came out on iPhone so I'm a bit of a veteran on this game. When I manage in say the Vanarama South league or Conference league, I basically use the player search menu to look for free transfers with 'interested' toggled on.

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1 hour ago, Lillywhite Dean said:

Yes I have. I've been playing FMM since it first came out on iPhone so I'm a bit of a veteran on this game. When I manage in say the Vanarama South league or Conference league, I basically use the player search menu to look for free transfers with 'interested' toggled on.

Let us know how you find 9.1 when you have the chance from a pure match difficulty perspective - as mentioned previously there are several tweaks that should make the AI a bit more responsive and some common user exploits a bit less effective.

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2 hours ago, Alari Naylor said:

Let us know how you find 9.1 when you have the chance from a pure match difficulty perspective - as mentioned previously there are several tweaks that should make the AI a bit more responsive and some common user exploits a bit less effective.

Yes will do Alari. I started a new MLS career following the 9.1 update and have about two games remaining of the season left to play so will post some thoughts here soon.

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9 hours ago, Lillywhite Dean said:

Yes will do Alari. I started a new MLS career following the 9.1 update and have about two games remaining of the season left to play so will post some thoughts here soon.

I play with attribute masking as well and it's challenging in lower leagues for me because I have only one scouts so I can only scout a certain number of players at a time so before I identify someone I want to sign he has already gone to someone else and I never have money for compensation.

So it's challenging and since the 9.1 update it's Benn difficult for me to keep clean sheets 

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On 04/01/2018 at 03:10, Alari Naylor said:

Let us know how you find 9.1 when you have the chance from a pure match difficulty perspective - as mentioned previously there are several tweaks that should make the AI a bit more responsive and some common user exploits a bit less effective.

Hi @Alari Naylor,

I completed a whole season following the 9.1 update. I decided to start a new career in the MLS to compare it with my career pre-9.1. I did however change teams from Atlanta United to Minnesota as I wanted to manage a team with a weaker squad. On reflection, I should have picked Atlanta again for a fairer comparison.

I began as a coach with an 'unkown' reputation but retained my gold coaching badge in motivation. The board set my objective as 'achieve a safe mid-table position', with a transfer budget of around £4M. At the end of the season, I finished 4th in the MLS Western Conference, 8th overall in the MLS Supporters Shield, Quarter Finals of the MLS Open Cup and runner's up in the MLS Cup.

What I liked about 9.1

  • I'm glad I didn't win anything. Seriously! This was a major relief. In my previous MLS career with Atlanta, I won everything bar the MLS Open Cup during my first season and I also found it incredibly easy to sign players and sell them on for a large profit (therefore always increasing my transfer budget). Minnesota are one of the weaker sides in the MLS so it would have been unrealistic for me to win the league in my first attempt. My final league standing in the Supporters Shield was W14 D10 L10 GF68 GA56. This means I lost my fair share of games and was 16 points off 1st place Atlanta United. If I compare this to a standard league setup, say the Premier League or Championship, I would have finished a credible 8th finishing above mid-table, but outside the European placings/playoff placings. 
  • At the start of my 2nd season, my objective is to achieve a safe mid-table position with a transfer budget of £750K. A transfer budget of £750K seems a little mean given the success of the previous season (although club wages have increased since my arrival) but I like the fact I have even less money to spend which will make success in the 2nd season even harder to attain.
  • I had my fair share of losing streaks which meant I had to re-think or tweak my tactics at times. I have previously found that I can pick one tactic and use it for every game throughout the season but in this particular career, I found that I couldn't always get away with just playing the same tactic.
  • In some of my defeats, I received an absolute hammering (losing by 3 or 4 goals). This would remind me that no matter how tight I thought my game-plan was, a team could still come along and give me a right battering.

What I didn't like about 9.1

  • I managed to get to the final of the MLS Cup. I was actually quite relieved to lose the final as I would have found it very unrealistic to win the biggest trophy in the MLS during my first season as an unknown manager. BUT I am slightly concerned that I did get to the final of a major competition in my first attempt and it was only a goal that decided it (lost 1-0 to Atlanta United who were the 1st placed team in the Supporters Shield). For someone who really wants to experience a challenge in FMM, I found almost winning this trophy a little close for comfort.
  • I had the MLS top goalscorer which obviously helped my cause in doing so well. I think it's worth pointing out that whenever I manage a team, I always seem to have the top goal scorer. I often can have three or four players in the top ten goal scoring chart. My top goalscorer is a decent player but certainly not the best striker in the MLS. In fact, there are many more players whose stats blow my top goalscorer's stats out of the water.
  • The Board failed to recognise the good work I was making with Minnesota and the players were too quick to accept me considering I was an 'unknown' manager. I also didn't have any problems with signing the players I wanted despite having an unknown reputation and managing one of the weaker sides in the MLS. I think being able to sign players without experiencing any resistance had a massive impact in helping me to achieve what I did.

Final verdict

I think overall 9.1 has been a positive update. I didn't win anything which means I can't accuse FMM of being too easy, although I would be interested to see how successful I am at managing a mid-table team in the Premier League. but I really enjoyed this season with Minnesota and I can't wait to get the 2nd season underway. I did experience a few bugs or unusual AI behaviour which I have posted separately but in terms of how easy this was for me, it has been one of the more challenging seasons I've experienced in a long while. 

I will report back again after my 2nd season where hopefully I will continue to find things challenging.

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FWIW - I didn't find the game particularly easy prior to 9.1, and now after the update I am really struggling. :/ Maybe down to me playing as Cambridge and having won promotions to the Championship though, tiny tiny fish in a gigantic ocean. But then again it's no fun playing as Barca and winning everything.

Thing is, if the devs intend this game to be a "mobile" game for playing in short bursts "on the go", I don't think it should be too complicated or hard. I get that some folks might play this for hours at home (sometimes I do too ...), but surely the other FM releases should cater for this market? I can't micro-manage absolutely "everything" while commuting to work, as a season (or even an in-game week, heh) then would take an age to finish. Unless I move further away from work so my commute is longer ... hmm ... plot twist ... ;)

Don't know where I'm going with this, but maybe something in the vein of "please let full FM be full FM and FMM be FMM".

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3 hours ago, Footix said:

FWIW - I didn't find the game particularly easy prior to 9.1, and now after the update I am really struggling. :/ Maybe down to me playing as Cambridge and having won promotions to the Championship though, tiny tiny fish in a gigantic ocean. But then again it's no fun playing as Barca and winning everything.

Thing is, if the devs intend this game to be a "mobile" game for playing in short bursts "on the go", I don't think it should be too complicated or hard. I get that some folks might play this for hours at home (sometimes I do too ...), but surely the other FM releases should cater for this market? I can't micro-manage absolutely "everything" while commuting to work, as a season (or even an in-game week, heh) then would take an age to finish. Unless I move further away from work so my commute is longer ... hmm ... plot twist ... ;)

Don't know where I'm going with this, but maybe something in the vein of "please let full FM be full FM and FMM be FMM".

I would say that Cambridge in the Championship would be a BIG challenge - and so it should be. If in real life Cambridge were promoted to the Championship, it would be very difficult keeping them up. FMM should reflect this reality too.

FMM should always be a 'lite' version of FM which can be played in short bursts if people prefer (or only have time for) but this concept should not impact on the game's realism. You also mention that "please let full FM be full FM and FMM be FMM" but again, the game's level of difficulty should not relate to which version of FM you are playing i.e. just because FMM is a lite version of FM, does not mean it should be easy to win (easy to play yes, but not easy to win). FMM is a game that you have to learn, just like every other game. If people want an easy challenge in FMM, then they can take charge of Barcelona or PSG. However, if I take charge of Huddersfield in the Premier League, I expect to have a season battling relegation. I don't feel FMM has always reflected this realism.

The great thing about FMM is that it isn't complicated. Even with all the enhancements it has received over the past few years, it still remains a very straightforward game but a straightforward game with layers of sophistication. 

P.S.

I'm not someone who feels like I have to keep winning to enjoy the game. The prospect of spending an entire season battling relegation with the board on my back sounds bloody fantastic.

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3 hours ago, Weller1980 said:

@Lillywhite Dean I'm thinking of buying FM18 mobile and one of the things putting me off were the comments about the game being too easy, so to read your post was very useful to me. I'd be interested to read your summary of season 2.

Also can you answer how you think player ratings are balanced in 9.1?

Cheers

No problem @Weller1980, I will write up another report after season two.  Let me just say that FMM 2018 is a very good game. As someone who has been playing FMM since it first came out on iPhone years ago, this is the best version yet. I also have played FM and FM touch and I enjoy FMM just as much as the main FM. However, in my opinion, the game misses out on being perfect due to the difficulty factor. Other people will tell you that they find it difficult to be successful but if you're someone who is very experienced in playing FM or if you like a real challenge, you might be of the same opinion as me. I stopped playing the 2017 version after about five months because I just kept being successful without feeling much of a challenge.

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  • SI Staff
On 1/3/2018 at 13:00, Lillywhite Dean said:

EDIT: just to add Marc, maybe when the 'mask player attributes' is on, using the player search menu to filter players by a list of chosen attributes should be unavailable/switched off. It seems to be an area of conflict. On one hand you have deliberately chosen to mask the attributes of players but on the other hand, you can still search for a range of unscouted players by their attributes.

It should automatically 'discount' anyone who hasn't a scouted attribute you have in the filter - so if someones hidden attribute is 19 and you're scouting 15+ you won't get them in your list because he's unknown to you ... 

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On 1/5/2018 at 10:47, Lillywhite Dean said:

The great thing about FMM is that it isn't complicated. Even with all the enhancements it has received over the past few years, it still remains a very straightforward game but a straightforward game with layers of sophistication. 

That is entirely its intent .... :D

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On 1/8/2018 at 17:26, Marc Vaughan said:

It should automatically 'discount' anyone who hasn't a scouted attribute you have in the filter - so if someones hidden attribute is 19 and you're scouting 15+ you won't get them in your list because he's unknown to you ... 

Why do attributes of scouted players disappear over time?

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26 minutes ago, DarJ said:

Why do attributes of scouted players disappear over time?

This is because only 'current' reports are considered to be valid - that is if you saw someone when he was 21 he might give you a particular view of him as a player, however at 24 he might have become jaded and stopped training properly - his pace might have dropped off and his ability with it ... as such that report from 3 years ago would be wholly misleading, nor if you hadn't seen him recently would you have any way of knowing what his current situation is.

Hence to avoid making things misleading or overly complicated we allow visibility accurately for attributes but remove some from display as time passes until only his most 'known' traits are visible.

Thus for myself I have always been a solid old fashioned defender with limited pace ... so you'd probably still know I'm 'strong, slow and can tackle' ... the fact that despite being 6'5'' I'm not actually that good in the air* would be a nice surprise for your strikers to discover during a match ;)

*Despite this I have somehow scored in two of the four SI Wimbledon tournaments I've played in, both times from headers from corners ... every dog has his day :D

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I completed my 2nd season in the MLS. Highlights are:

  • Finished 3rd in the MLS Western Conference (up from 4th the previous season)
  • Finished 4th in the MLS Supporters Shield (up from 8th the previous season)
  • Winner of the US Cup
  • Runner up of the Western Conference Playoff Final (I think I have this right. It is the final conference match to determine who goes through to the MLS Cup final)

So my performance during this season was an improvement from the season before in terms of league placings and cup success but I did fail to reach the MLS Cup final – unlike the season previously.
 
After my first 10 matches in the MLS, I was sitting top of the table with only one defeat. The alarm bells were ringing as I could see myself running away with the league title because I seemed to be beating sides comfortably. However, my team suffered from various patches of poor form which contributed to a total of 8 defeats (an improvement from 10 defeats from the previous season). Despite putting together a really strong team, I was not yet good enough to finish in 1st place.
 
What I liked
That despite my early charge to the top of the league, I found the season to be challenging enough to keep pace with the top teams in the MLS. I never felt in any danger of finishing below the top 4 but at around the halfway stage, I realised that winning either of the Western Conference or Supporters Shield was in no way guaranteed.
 
Seattle Sounders seemed to be a bit of a bogey team for me and when I met them in the Western Conference Playoff Final, the absolutely battered me over two legs despite me finishing two places above them in the league (this has stoked up a bit of a rivalry for me).
 
My star striker, (a young squad player with untapped potential), ended up as the league’s top goal-scorer and had his value increase from under £1M to £11M. He began to attract the interest of a lot of decent clubs in Europe and I found myself in the difficult position of deciding whether to sell him for £27M.
 
Winning the US Cup. It isn’t the most important title in the MLS but I felt my team was deserving of some silverware this season.
 
What I didn’t like
I said in my previous post that I was looking forward to starting the 2nd season with only a transfer budget of around £750K. I thought this would offer me a real challenge of trying to improve the squad on limited funds. However, you will see by the graphic below that I was able to sign seven players who added real value to the squad for a total of only £350K. Four of the seven signings were free transfers. One of the free transfers was Lucas Piazon from Chelsea who is an excellent excellent player. I feel this is an area of FMM that needs work. It is too easy to acquire decent players on a limited budget. I also found that despite wanting to sign players who were unlikely to want to join my club (based on scout reports), none of these players actually showed any unwillingness to sign for me. The contract negotiations were very straightforward and easy to conclude. I also found it easy to buy the players I wanted as the clubs I dealt with didn't refuse my interest or demand more than the transfer value. Of course this can happen in real-life but I just found it odd that a lot of the clubs I approach had a keen willingness to sell and for a price at around (or sometimes below) the player's transfer value. Had this area been a bit more challenging, I would have had a much more difficult season ahead of me.
 
My star striker, who I did eventually sell for £27M, was always happy to stay at my club. A number of my players have attracted interest from other teams and yet none of them have ever wanted to leave. When Everton, Torino and Benfica came in for my striker, I was expecting him to be eager to leave the MLS and play in a much more prestigious league. However, after refusing a number of early transfer bids for him, at no point did he vent his anger at not being allowed to move. When I did eventually sell him, none of my squad players seemed unhappy about our star striker leaving. I was expecting to have to deal with some unrest.
 
Final verdict
I really enjoyed this season. I am finding this career more challenging than the careers on previous versions of FMM but I am aware my rate of progress has been quite accelerated and I think this is largely helped by the ease of being able to sign decent-to-quality players on a limited transfer budget and the willingness of my best players to remain at my club despite interest from bigger better teams.

Screenshot_20180113-105903.png

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3rd season completed. Highlights were:

  • Finished 1st in the MLS Western Conference (up from 3rd from the previous season)
  • Finished 2nd in the MLS Supporters Shield (up from 4th from the previous season)
  • Semi-finals of the US Cup
  • Runner up of the Western Conference Playoff Final
  • Quarter finals of the NACL

So as you can see from above, the trend of improving upon my previous league placing has continued. I came close to winning the MLS Supporters Shield, which would be similar to winning a regular league campaign, but ended the season without a trophy. 

What I liked

I sold my star striker for £27M during the summer transfer window which meant I had a really healthy transfer balance to strengthen the team in all areas. Despite implementing an exhaustive scouting operation, the players I brought in (from South America) failed to live up to their potential. Whilst this might be frustrating for some (my scout telling me my new inside forward has a 4.5-star ability but after a couple of games, this decreases to 3.5 stars), it presented an accurate portrayal of the transfer market. How many times have we seen clubs spend their cash from a major transfer on multiple players only for these players not live up to their potential? In the end, it was a 16 year old striker, who I signed for peanuts from the previous season (and was planning on introducing him to the team a lot later on in his development) who became my new star player, scoring 29 goals in 31 games. 

The fact that I was close to winning multiple trophies yet won nothing. This MLS career is still keeping me on my toes.

What I didn’t like

I still see the AI overuse the ‘Overload’ tactic. A lot of teams kick-off a match with this tactic. Unless I have misunderstood what this tactic is, Overload should only be used when a losing team is desperate to score goals in order to save something from the match. I think one of the reasons why I win so many matches is because the AI is often using this high-risk strategy. It makes it easy for me to score against them.

I’ve mentioned this before but I think it’s worth saying again. It concerns me how easy it is for me to have the league’s top goal scorer in my side. This has been the case in previous version of FMM also. I don’t understand why it's always my strikers that end up being the league’s top goal scorer. There are better strikers in the league and I don’t play excessively attacking formations or tactics. My star striker was 16 when he first broke into the side and was 17 when he started scoring for fun. He had the potential of reaching four stars but his current ability was two stars. This is the 2nd striker I’ve had in my team who has been an absolute goal machine (not to mention my other striker who, thanks to his incredible strength and pace (but very low attacking and technical stats) ends up scoring plenty of goals too). The ease of my strikers scoring goals freely worries me. I sometimes think about sticking my goalkeeper up front to see if he will get 25+ goals a season.

Because my first season as Minnesota coach exceeded the board's expectations of a mid-table finish, my second season as coach produced silverware, and now this third season as coach has seen me come close to winning the league title, I feel my trajectory is just one continual upward curve. I don’t see how the AI will adjust to the positive decisions I make so that the challenge of winning the MLS Supporters Shield or the MLS Cup becomes more difficult. I'm not seeing any evidence of the AI making significant improvements to their own teams so to make it more difficult for me to compete as a rival. It feels like me winning everything is inevitable and once I have, it will either be carry on winning with that same club or move on to another club and start the rebuilding process again.

Final verdict

My initial complaint was that I tend to win major trophies in my first season as coach because the game is too easy. However, in three MLS seasons, I have won one cup and only come close to winning a league title on one occasion. This comes across as a significant improvement and I hope this experience translates into the other leagues as well (I have only been playing in the MLS so far). That said, it only feels like a matter of time (next season maybe) where I "crack" FMM and winning the competition starts to get easier as my opponents around me fail to strengthen their squads to keep up with mine.

Although my reputation is only Regional, as soon as another club wants me (say a second tier European club in, England, Italy or Spain) I will move to see how well I perform in a different league.
 

I hope this is useful to you @Weller1980

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@Lillywhite Dean

i enjoyed reading your feedback very informative and useful. Thank you, and thanks for the notification.

It really sounds like FMM has taken a step in the right direction with regards to the difficulty levels, I did in fact buy the game of the back of your initial feedback and I find the difficulty level about right, however as you suggested after a few seasons it does indeed become easier as ai teams struggle competing with us human/experienced players.

It will be nice to see some updated code regarding top players wanting to move to bigger clubs etc, maybe next update?

one problem I’ve noticed within the enhanced me, and this seems to be the polar opposite to fm18 I can’t score goals from crosses whereas in fm18 the majority of my assists come crosses, very repetitive.

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15 hours ago, Weller1980 said:

@Lillywhite Dean

i enjoyed reading your feedback very informative and useful. Thank you, and thanks for the notification.

It really sounds like FMM has taken a step in the right direction with regards to the difficulty levels, I did in fact buy the game of the back of your initial feedback and I find the difficulty level about right, however as you suggested after a few seasons it does indeed become easier as ai teams struggle competing with us human/experienced players.

It will be nice to see some updated code regarding top players wanting to move to bigger clubs etc, maybe next update?

one problem I’ve noticed within the enhanced me, and this seems to be the polar opposite to fm18 I can’t score goals from crosses whereas in fm18 the majority of my assists come crosses, very repetitive.

You're welcome. I'm glad my feedback was helpful and I hope you continue to enjoy the game but as you point out, I am concerned with how easy the game becomes after a few seasons. I hope SI can address this.

With regards to goals from crosses, I hadn't really considered this but now that you mention it, you might be on to something. I will keep an eye out to see if I have a problem with this.

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4th season update. Highlights were:

  • Finished 1st in the MLS Western Conference (equals the previous season’s efforts)
  • Finished 1st in the MLS Supporters Shield (up from 2nd place the previous season)
  • Semi-finals of the US Cup (equals the previous season’s efforts)
  • Winner of the MLS Cup (up from playoff finalist the previous season)
  • Winner of the NACL (up from quarter finalist the previous season)
  • Semi-finals of the World Club Championships (losing narrowly to Real Madrid 2-1)

As predicted in my 3rd season summary, the 4th season is where I “cracked” FMM and nearly won the lot. It was only due to fielding my youngsters in the US Cup that I didn’t end up winning every trophy in the MLS.

What I liked
I pretty much won the lot but I didn’t run away with it. I won the MLS Supporters Shield with a two point margin over 2nd place DC United. I also won the playoff final in the MLS Cup on aggregate goals (playoff final is the qualifying match to the MLS Cup final). So although I did dominate the season, I didn’t obliterate my rivals like I have done in previous versions of FMM.

What I didn’t like
I have some fantastic players in my squad and they have rightly caught the attention of big clubs around Europe. However, none of my players wanted to leave during or at the end of the season. I do accept that as I had an immensely successful season, you could argue my players would want to stick around as the chances of winning silverware was high but this is something I have noticed from the very beginning of both my MLS careers. My players are always happy to stay at the club. This makes the game very unrealistic and makes my job so much easier if players never want to leave. The game would be so much more challenging and realistic, if my top rated players demanded big money moves to clubs in Europe OR would became angry at me for rejecting transfer bids thus resulting in low morale and poor form. 

Again - top goalscorer! I rotated my strikers as I had a number of young talented forwards in my squad that I wanted to develop. Yet somehow I still ended up with the league’s top goalscorer as my winger outscored every striker in the league. I’m starting to think there’s a top goalscorer bug here. This is four seasons in a row where I have had the league’s top goalscorer and it has been a different player every time.

I’ve reported this as a bug in a separate thread but my board’s feelings towards me was always in the yellow category. Despite winning three trophies, and making a profit of over £30M, I was told that I should be performing better in my job. I also wonder whether this affects my managerial reputation as I’m still on ‘Regional’ (however, I accept that north American trophies may not hold the same prestige as their European counterparts and so it might mean I have to win more trophies in the MLS to be regarded as National).

Final verdict
It has taken me four seasons to build a team capable of winning a league title. Given my experience of playing FMM, I find this to be pretty satisfying. I have really enjoyed the MLS league. The two conference structure, along with the US Cup and the MLS Cup, offers a quirky but challenging way of playing FMM (I understand this closely resembles how the MLS plays in real life). However, I strongly suspect that now I have created my winning squad, the likelihood of continued success will be high as the game does not do enough in making sure other teams sufficiently in the league are sufficiently strengthened to be able to offer a continued threat to me. This, along with the fact that my players are always happy to stay at my club, means the game will probably become easier the longer I play it.

I have yet to play in a conventional European league and I am keen to compare my MLS experience with say the English, German or Italian leagues. I want to continue in this career so I plan to apply for a job in Europe but suspect that with a ‘Regional’ reputation, I will have to remain in the MLS until my rep is sufficient enough for me to move.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I wanted to start a new career so to have something to compare with my Minnesota United career. I decided to manage Livorno in the Serie C/A league.

I started as a manager with no reputation but opted to retain my gold coaching badge. After completing my first season, I finished top of the league with three games left to play and 11 points above my nearest rival.

I started off with some convincing wins but also had a couple of surprising defeats which forced me to rethink my tactics. Once I switched from a 4-3-3 to a 3-4-3 formation, I found that I was defeating my rivals quite easily.

My final standing was W23 D9 L4 GD44. 

What I liked
Manager interaction: I received more media and player interaction when compared to my career in the MLS. I was often asked about the lax attitude of many of my players (no evidence support they were being lazy in training) and a number of my players seemed more bothered about my low reputation which I thought was quite realistic. This had an impact on contract negotiations and potential player transfers. However, I soon started winning over most of these players as soon as the team started winning. That said, there have been a few odd interactions with players who still wanted to wait and see how I performed before signing a new contract with the club despite it being the end of the season and having won the league title. Another form of player interaction that I really liked was having a 37 year old player come up to me and ask if they can retrain into a new position to prolong their playing career. I have never seen this before and I think this is great. I have seen a lot of players retire far too young (31 year olds for example) so to see a 37 year old with decent stats wanting to carry on is a great touch. I offered him a 1 year extension because of that. 

Appreciative board: The Board were a lot more appreciative of my efforts than they were at Minnesota in the MLS. As soon as I topped the league, they were always happy to praise me at the monthly board meetings. I also won manager of the year which was something I never won in the MLS despite being a serious contender for it. 

What I didn’t like
Game difficulty: I suspect Livorno are one of the strongest teams in Serie C/A because my objective at the start of the season was to mount a serious challenge for the title. However, even if this is true, I found winning the title to be very easy. I had to make a few tactical tweaks early on in the season due to some surprising defeats but once my team settled into the 3-4-3 formation, I was uncatchable. I had a total of 4 defeats in the league and I never felt like any of my rivals would catch me up. If Livorno are the top side in Serie C/A then I guess the outcome is quite realistic (I note in real life they are topping the same league) but I really hope Serie B offers a much tougher test. I was beginning to think (from my career in the MLS) that FMM 2018 had ramped up the difficulty levels.

Player injuries: Either I was very unlucky or the Italian leagues might need a few tweaks as I found that I had an extraordinarily high number of injuries. My training schedule isn’t on the demanding side and my training facilities are rated as “impressive” but so many of my players received training injuries. I also checked my coach reports to see if any of my players were injury prone – yet none of them were. A lot of players who received training injuries would return from one injury and then quickly succumbed to a new one. I would say that I never had less than five injured players at any one time.

Transfers: I didn’t have much of a transfer budget to play with (which is realistic) but I was able to sign a large number of promising Italians on free transfers from clubs who were daft to let them leave in the first place. I'm also able to sell a lot of unwanted players very easily. For example, I signed a striker from the Scottish Championship who had pretty good stats for my level of competition. He cost around £250k but he only made 9 starts (was out injured for a month) and scored zero goals. At the beginning of my second season in Serie B, I decided that he wasn’t going to do it for me so I listed him for transfer and offered him to clubs for his true value - £750k. No club was interested. So I offered him to clubs for a reduced cost of £600k and both Bolton and Millwall tabled bids. I then negotiated the price up to £700k which Bolton were willing to match. I accepted the transfer and made a £500k profit on a player who was absolute rubbish for me. It makes me wonder whether this is a trick I can keep on repeating as I never seem be short of offers for players I no longer need.

Final verdict
I’m hoping my success in Serie C was achieved easily due to me picking the strongest side in the competition (which therefore makes this seasons success quite realistic). However, my next objective is to achieve mid-table safety in Serie B which I think is probably going to be quite easy to achieve but I hope it still offers a challenge. I have yet to enjoy a relegation scrap and so would love this to happen in my forthcoming season. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

So as mentioned previously, I won Serie B with Livorno at my first attempt.

This wasn’t very hard to achieve, so it did feel like a bit of a let down as I expected the season to be more challenging when compared to my Serie C/A title success the season previously.

My final league standing was W25 D12 L5 GD+51. I played a 3-4-3 formation and my three strikers scored a combined 79 league goals. One of my strikers won the golden boot with 33 goals and my other striker came 2nd with 29 goals (my third striker scored 17 league goals).

What I liked
This is hard to say. The board’s objective was to achieve mid-table safety in Serie B yet I won the league comfortably. I never felt under any pressure and at no point during the season did another club mount a serious challenge for the title.I

I suppose my modest transfer budget was a positive because this (in theory) would make the challenge of promotion more difficult but… (see below)

What I didn’t like
Obviously the ease of winning Serie B. I won Serie C/A very easily (and could kind of understand this as it was expected from my board) but I don't think I should have walked to the Serie B title so easily. 

The transfers. I thought having a very modest transfer budget would make signing talented players more difficult but this wasn’t to be the case. I knew that sending my scouts to South America and Africa would likely (when compared to Europe and UK & Ireland) unearth young, promising talent, or very decent players at very affordable prices. As expected my silver graded first team scout found a 25 year old Brazilian striker called Leonadro from SEP (Sociedade Esportiva Palmeiras). I signed him for only £80K despite being worth so much more as he had fantastic stats. During his first season with me, he scored 37 goals in 43 games. It felt like I had cheated a little as this player wasn’t hard to find nor difficult to sign. He adapted very quickly to life in Italy and obviously his 37 league goals were instrumental in securing the Serie B league title. It was immensly fun signing such a player of that calibre but it did make my job a lot easier. I thought that I would at least have to face the issue of a bigger club wanting to prise him off my hands but despite Leonadro wanting to move to a bigger club, no other club showed any interest so keeping him has been very easy.

Final verdict
Have to say that I was disappointed with this season. I was expecting much more of a challenge but it only took a couple of decent signings and the league title was mine. No tweaks to my tactics, no unhappy players to contend with, no transfer requests from clubs wanting to sign my best players. All too easy.
 

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Well I've just experienced some improvement on the difficulty level. My first season in Serie A with promoted side Livorno ended in a league finish of 9th. My final league standing was W15 D10 L13 GD+8.

What I liked
This season has been the most challenging in Italy so far. Not since my first season as manager at Minnesota Utd in the MLS (my first career save on FMM 2018) has achieving a mid-table league placing felt like a proper achievement. I quite enjoyed this season. I enjoyed the fact that success came in the form of finishing 9th by getting some really hard earnt wins and draws along the way. I liked having to tinker with my tactics at various points during the season because things weren’t always working for me (before I could just play the same tactic for every game and win).
 
What I didn’t like
I enjoyed this season but I still overachieved. The board’s objective was to survive relegation and I did this by finishing eight places (or over 30 points) above the relegation zone. I looked carefully at my team report at the start of the season and every position showed orange on the squad depth screen. A lot of my players were rated 2 or 2.5 stars by my backroom staff and when you compare this to the standard of Serie A, my team should have found the league a lot more difficult than they actually did. I had a striker who was rated 2 stars out of 5 yet he still managed to score 11 goals in 21 league appearances with an average rating of 7.45. What I really want to get across to SI is that my squad was significantly below the Serie A standard; my team report had substantially more criticisms then it had positive statements, and I was fully expected to face relegation - yet I was still able to compete with big teams such as Napoli, Fiorentina and Inter and I only narrowly missed out on European qualification. My opponents should have done a better job against me.

Final verdict
This has definitely been a much more positive experience. I was hoping for a relegation battle but instead I achieved mid-table safety and could have won European qualification. The fact that I had to tinker with my tactics kept me on my toes so it was nice to not feel like I was just going through the motions (keep hitting “continue” until match day, hit “play match”, win match, keep hitting “continue” until match day etc etc) but I can’t help but think there’s a disconnect between how below-average my squad was at the beginning of the season and how well they performed against teams ranked from 6th to 20th. That doesn't seem right.

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Ok, this will be my final post on this thread. I’m sure the developers at SI will be delighted :lol:! I was eager to share my experiences on playing FMM2018 as I have always pleaded with the game’s developers to make FMM more challenging, or at least introduce a difficulty setting. Having played five seasons in the MLS and four season in Serie A, I think my testing of the game’s difficulty level has been pretty exhaustive!

I have just completed my second season in Serie A. As you know, my career with Livorno has so far been:

2017/18:    Serie C/A - Champions (was expected to mount a challenge for the title)
2018/19:    Serie B - Champions (was expected to achieve mid-table safety)
2019/20:    Serie A – finished 9th (was expected to fight bravely against relegation)

So:

Board's objective
For the 2020/21 season, the board set a minimum objective of achieving a EURO place and were prepared to fund me with £12M to achieve this.

Squad assessment
I had a look at my Team Report. Among some of the strongest criticisms were:
•    A perceived lack of ambition amongst the squad
•    Lacking professionalism
•    Tends to fear playing big matches
•    Lacking depth in a number of key areas

The Squad Depth screen showed that the majority of my positions were highlighted Orange or Yellow.

So according to my backroom team, my squad had a number of big issues that would make achieving a Euro place very, very difficult.

Strengthening my squad
Armed with my £12M, I set my scouts to work. I wanted them to look for players who would strengthen the weaknesses in my team but as we all know, you cannot instruct your scouts to look for specific player positions in their assignments. So a lot of the scout reports came back for players who were not a priority for me i.e. strikers, goalkeepers, central defenders. I actually needed was improvements in the roles of defensive midfielder, defensive wide player or winger.

I cancelled my assignments and instead assigned my scouts to look for players in South America and Africa. As I’ve said previously, it is very easy to find young raw talent that has the potential to be world class from these two continents. You can also find players in their mid to late 20s, with very good stats, and with transfer values considerably cheaper than their European counterparts e.g. my top striker, Leandro, was signed at the age of 25 for £80K. 

The quality of young players being scouted in these areas were good. Whilst their current ability would only be 1 star (1.5 star at most), their potential would often exceed 4 stars. I therefore spent £8.75M on 11 players under the age of 20 (three of them were free transfers). I knew these players would unlikely feature in my current season but they were seen as a solid investment.

Upon signing those players, two of the eleven were of sufficient quality for me to put them into my first team squad straight away. One of them, Martin Laxalt (a 19 year old striker who cost £2M) eventually scored 16 goals in 30 appearances and had 12 assists with an average rating of 7.43.

Other than those two new youngsters, I used my squad from the previous season.

Tactics
•    Formation: 3-4-3.
•    Shape: Team Mentality: Balanced. Width: Balanced. Tempo: Balanced. Creative Freedom: Expressive.
•    Defence: Defensive Line: Balanced. Closing Down: All Over. Tackling: Normal. Offside Trap: No. Time Wasting: No.
•    Attack: Final Third: Shoot on sight + Run at defence. Passing Style: Mixed. Passing Focus: Mixed. Goalkeeper Distribution: Mixed.

Unlike the previous season, I didn’t have to worry about tinkering with my tactics. I was able to use the same match tactics for every game only making slight alterations during a match based on the score. I also made slight changes to one or two player positions based on who was being played in the team that day.

2020/21 outcome
•    Serie A champions (with one game left to play).
•    Final standings: P38 W26 D8 L4 GF94 GA43 GD51 Pts86
•    Manager of the Year (second time running)
•    Golden boot winner: Leandro – 35 goals (13 goals ahead of the second place Paulo Dybala)
•    Best Player in Europe: Leandro
•    Serie A Player of the Year: Leandro
•    Two Livorno players in Serie A Team of the Year (Leandro and Daniele Verde).

Final verdict
This game is still too easy.

In only four seasons, I took a team from  Serie C/A to the Serie A title. In my Serie A championship winning season, £3.6M of the £12M given to me by the board was spent on the first team squad. So with a squad that was ranked 9 out of 20 the season before, £3.6M and two additional players was enough to make the difference in winning the Serie A title - and doing so by beating world class teams with immensely better squads i.e. Juventus, AC Milan, Inter and Napoli.

My squad was supposedly lacking ambition, fearful of big matches, unprofessional and lacking depth in key areas. But none of this made any difference to my team's performances and their overall form.

My transfer policy of buying young, promising raw talent that is untested and unproven in a foreign league seems to be more effective then signing established, experienced players who are native to Italy or to Europe.

I just can’t understand why I was able to achieve all this with such an average squad. I only spent £3.6M on the first team and the two players I brought in were under the age of 20. I could understand it better if I had the ‘Sugar Daddy’ mode on and spent over a £100M on players, but I only needed to spend £3.6m! For the next season (2021/22 season), I have been given £46M to spend but I won’t need it. You can win the league by spending less than £5M!

There are a number of other things that I don’t understand about the game. 

My top striker, Leandro, is probably my best player. His 35 goals were instrumental in Livorno winning the title. He expressed, several times during the season, a desire to play for a bigger club. This was to be expected and I thought that given his goal return in Serie A, a number of bigger clubs would be soon expressing an interest in him. But not one club wanted to sign him. When I navigated to his contract page, there wasn’t one club listed as being interested. Having started the 2021/22 season, Leandro has been awarded ‘best player in Europe’, ‘best Serie A player’ and is a golden boot winner (scoring a whopping 35 goals), but still no club has tried to take him off my hands. My other striker, Martin Lexalt, age 20 (and a transfer value that is now £54M) continuously uses the media to express his desire to play for a bigger club (this goes into overdrive during a transfer window). The guy is such a talent. Great stats. Scores goals. Is under the age of 21. But like Leandro, not one club is interested in signing him. He keeps wanting to leave but no one seems interested. I don’t understand it. It makes my job as manager so much easier (and therefore makes the game easier as a whole) when no one wants to buy my best players.

I should also point out that despite being warned that the form of my players wanting to leave will suffer, this never actually happens. Neither Leandro nor Lexalt stopped performing at any point during the season despite the fact that they wanted to leave and were often unhappy with me for not granting them a transfer. It had zero effect on their performances.

My reputation at the start of the 2020/21 season was ‘National’. Despite leading the table early on in the season, and with all my achievements so far, not one club approached me to become their manager. I was really looking forward to seeing my name linked with a vacancy every time a middle to high profile club sacked someone but it never happened. I wasn't expecting a European giant to suddenly come in for me but there were plenty of clubs who did sack their managers and I would have been the ideal fit.

This game is so close to being perfection but the ease of taking a Serie C/A club to the Serie A title in four seasons is just so unrealistic, especially when I’ve achieved this on a very limited budget, had a very average of squad, and not had the worry of larger clubs coming in and signing all of my best players. Part of the fun in playing FMM is taking a club to promotion and then having to battle relegation for the whole season – or facing the sack because you’re not on course to meet your board’s objectives, and then being sacked and having to rebuild your reputation with another club. Of course winning titles and playing in the Champions League is also a massively fun element to the game, and this is where we all want to end up eventually, but promotions and titles should be so much more harder to achieve with lower rated clubs.

My ideal scenario for starting at the bottom would be:
•    Manage a club like Livorno with the objective of getting them to the top flight (Serie A) within 3-6 seasons. 
•    Face a relegation battle during my first season in the top flight.
•    Cement Livorno’s status as a Serie A club in the second season (if survived relegation/the sack).
•    Build on this success if I have managed to keep Livorno in Serie A or face the sack if I haven’t.
•    As my reputation grows (if successful) face the dilemma of higher rated teams approaching me with job offers. Do I stick with Livorno and try and build a dynasty or move to a bigger club and look to win titles more quickly?

 

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  • SI Staff

Thanks for your analysis - its very interesting, any chance on you passing along your latest save btw ...

I'll take your feedback into account when tuning things going forward and try and make things a little more challenging for you BUT do please bear in mind that its incredibly likely you are in the minority with finding it quite that easy  (which the survey seems to reflect - we do need a 'its about right' option on that imho) - heck knows I don't ;) 

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19 hours ago, Marc Vaughan said:

Thanks for your analysis - its very interesting, any chance on you passing along your latest save btw ...

I'll take your feedback into account when tuning things going forward and try and make things a little more challenging for you BUT do please bear in mind that its incredibly likely you are in the minority with finding it quite that easy  (which the survey seems to reflect - we do need a 'its about right' option on that imho) - heck knows I don't ;) 

Hello Marc. Always good to get a response from you :thup:

I am more than happy to provide my save. I've uploaded it now and marked it for your attention. 

With regards to tuning it so that things are a little more challenging, then that would be greatly appreciated. With regards to me be in the minority, I'm not so sure. I've seen plenty of comments on these forums over the years (and other FMM fan sites too) suggesting the difficulty level should be ramped up. Of course I have also seen comments from those who say they are struggling with the game and cannot win no matter what they do - but in those cases I strongly suspect that a lot of those people are either new to the game or are just not as experienced. I think once you take the time to learn the game, the route to success comes quite easily. I also think there are a lot of people who enjoy winning all the time and so are unlikely to raise this as an issue.

Would an overall difficulty setting work? I understand the introduction of coaching badges and reputation levels has been designed to add a layer of difficulty but what about something that allows you to select a different intelligence setting for the AI? (Pardew mode, Allardyce mode, Guardiola mode :lol:)

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Maybe FMM 19 will have a special "Dean mode" as an unlockable? :D

Since I started this thread I've jumped ship from Cambridge to Sheff Wed, won promotion to the Premier League and is now sitting 5th after 25 games - 7 points behind leaders Man Utd. While I still feel managing the actual games is pretty difficult (I've tried the advice given earlier in this thread - look at the opposition and tweak accordingly, but I don't know what to do in all circumstances), I think squad building is fairly easy. My team is filled with good to very good players, and I have a feeling I win most games simply because my players are better than the opposition.

If you ask me I'd say the game is pretty much where it should be in terms of difficulty..

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Players who know the game well will soon build up a squad that’s above average for the division after a couple of seasons. As Footix says, you’ll then do quite well simply by having better players.

Perhaps the best test is international management. If you’re managing a team that’s very average in ability in world terms then you can’t just recruit better players to improve your chances. Even with good managing ability you could struggle as you can’t contain in form attacking superstars or overwhelm world class defenders with journeymen.

 

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  • 1 month later...
  • SI Staff
On 3/7/2018 at 07:46, Footix said:

If you ask me I'd say the game is pretty much where it should be in terms of difficulty..

On average I think you're correct but I'm trying to look at ways to make it feel 'right' for everyone - in general we find from our surveying that after a few weeks play around 15% find it too hard, 25% too easy and the remaining people think its about right.

What I'm trying to do is slim down the percentage of people who aren't finding it 'about right' - as some of you have guessed this was part of the intention of adding in the 'starting reputation' levels into the game and suchlike.

One thing I'm wondering is do those finding it too easy use the 'attribute masking / fog of war' option? - if not why not.

For those who don't find it too easy, do you use this option or do you - if you don't why not, if you do - does it make finding quality players a little more challenging?

(I'm considering turning this on by default in the future depending on feedback)
 

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2 hours ago, Marc Vaughan said:



One thing I'm wondering is do those finding it too easy use the 'attribute masking / fog of war' option? - if not why not.
 

Hi Marc. I use attribute masking in all my games and I find this has little bearing on the games difficulty. I'm curious how this would make the game more difficult? You only need to scout players to learn what attributes they have. 

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4 hours ago, Marc Vaughan said:

For those who don't find it too easy, do you use this option or do you - if you don't why not, if you do - does it make finding quality players a little more challenging?

(I'm considering turning this on by default in the future depending on feedback)
 

I don't have it enabled; I have all attributes visible by default. 

It wouldn't make much difference if it was enabled. As Dean says, it's only a matter of scouting - a few extra taps/clicks. 

Finding new players isn't a problem. Understanding tactics is. (which roles supplement each other, which mentality to use, which refinements to enable) 

For reference, I still play CM 01/02 and still think it is the best thing ever. 👍

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