Time To Quit The Game?

[FMunderachiever]

Hello everyone.

 

Im not sure whether its worth playing the game anymore.

 

It just seems like a constant source of frustration and in all honesty lack of enjoyment.

 

All successful formations seem to range from unusual to absolutely bonkers, and the same patterns appear over and over again, things like high press tactics being too vulnerable to througg balls than normal, no matter what training schedules i set up my strikers always being less clinical than the opposition, crosses being blocked over and over.

 

I dont know what will bring some enjoyment back. Im **** at the game admittedly but the game is too difficult in my opinion and it doesnt reflect real football that well imo.

 

Stick at it? Maybe pick a team to massage my ego?

[pauly15]

Post your tactic...

[FMunderachiever]

58 minutes ago, pauly15 said:

Post your tactic...

I dont think its so much a case of posting tactics.

 

Im just not sure what would give me an incentive to play the game. I think im bored of it, im not sure what to do. I think the tactics are a bit rubbish and a bit limiting, the game cant replicate real life very well i dont think, and i do suffer from a syndrome of wanting to be entertained rather than sitting there and losing too, not too proud to admit.

 

I think the game likes certain tactics and likes to be played in a certain way. Watching certain big teams constantly struggle is rubbish, as is seeing such a limited amount of different types of goals being scored, and generally brainded players.

 

Its FM fatigue i think. overplaying without focus

 

 

[NabsKebabs]

20 minutes ago, FMunderachiever said:

I dont think its so much a case of posting tactics.

 

Im just not sure what would give me an incentive to play the game. I think im bored of it, im not sure what to do. I think the tactics are a bit rubbish and a bit limiting, the game cant replicate real life very well i dont think, and i do suffer from a syndrome of wanting to be entertained rather than sitting there and losing too, not too proud to admit.

 

I think the game likes certain tactics and likes to be played in a certain way. Watching certain big teams constantly struggle is rubbish, as is seeing such a limited amount of different types of goals being scored, and generally brainded players.

 

Its FM fatigue i think. overplaying without focus

 

 

I've been getting less enjoyment out of FM recently too. I'm ok at the game and have a reasonable understanding of tactics but the main thing I don't like is the AI just isn't realistic. The opposition managers play nothing like they actually do IRL (especially tactically and even team selections can be ridiculous at times) plus the AI's transfers/squad building is just stupid more often than not. 

I've been enjoying gaming as a whole a lot less lately...bored of FIFA and got the new call of duty and find it absolutely rubbish. I've decided what's the point of wasting money and time on things that don't give you that much enjoyment? May aswell find something else to do in that case. 

As an Arsenal supporter, I've really been enjoying spending more time watching us play and following the team instead of playing FM for example. 

[NabsKebabs]

Another point that is a bit taboo on the tactics forum...the match engine definitely has issues and realistically, it's going to be very hard for it to replicate real life football extremely closely. There are "game breaker" tactics that really don't make a lot of sense and probably wouldn't be very effective IRL.  

[phnompenhandy]

The way I come to terms with ME limitations is to manage a lower league side. Currently my team is a level 10 part-time village outfit. The point is, players at this level are supposed to be quite rubbish, so any bad play can be put down to the players, not the ME. That way my FM career retains a strong sense of verisimilitude, and it even becomes fun to be a rubbish manager and not expect incessant success.

[FMunderachiever]

1 minute ago, NabsKebabs said:

Another point that is a bit taboo on the tactics forum...the match engine definitely has issues and realistically, it's going to be very hard for it to replicate real life football extremely closely. There are "game breaker" tactics that really don't make a lot of sense and probably wouldn't be very effective IRL.  

I completely agree with this.

 

People make posts about the success they are having with a certain club, and proceed to post a tactic that is simply absurd. I think the match engine has been going backwards and it just doesnt in any way feel realistic. Even once you get past the utterly silly goalkeepers carrying the ball out for corners and defenders turning around and blasting it out for a corner every game, there are a very narrow range of goals that are scored, there are balls over the top constantly, theres just so little to the game.

Media........the same questions over, and over, and over, and over, and over, it just adds nothing to the gaming experience at all.

 

 

[FMunderachiever]

3 minutes ago, phnompenhandy said:

The way I come to terms with ME limitations is to manage a lower league side. Currently my team is a level 10 part-time village outfit. The point is, players at this level are supposed to be quite rubbish, so any bad play can be put down to the players, not the ME. That way my FM career retains a strong sense of verisimilitude, and it even becomes fun to be a rubbish manager and not expect incessant success.

I like that opinion too, i think you can accept the limitations of players at that level where the football in its nature is a lot more simple, and often the best saves are those done at the non league level i think where there are no preconceptions of how a team should play and what it should achieve

[NabsKebabs]

15 minutes ago, FMunderachiever said:

People make posts about the success they are having with a certain club, and proceed to post a tactic that is simply absurd. I think the match engine has been going backwards and it just doesnt in any way feel realistic.

Someone just posted an Arsenal tactic in the forum with two advanced forwards up top. The most attacking role in the game for a team who will more often than not come up against teams who give away no space. This tactic won him back to back titles and a CL. 

Fair play to the guy for his success, but can someone point out a team who actually uses two advanced forwards IRL? Nah didn't think so. 

[NabsKebabs]

I have to say that what FM has done, is vastly increase my curiosity and knowledge in football tactics. When I watch football now, I watch it in a completely different way. 

[FMunderachiever]

1 minute ago, NabsKebabs said:

Someone just posted an Arsenal tactic in the forum with two advanced forwards up top. The most attacking role in the game for a team who will more often than not come up against teams who give away no space. This tactic won him back to back titles and a CL. 

Fair play to the guy for his success, but can someone point out a team who actually uses two advanced forwards IRL? Nah didn't think so. 

I think again, you are right.

It bears absolutely no resemblence to what a real life Arsenal team would do, their style would not be anything like what it would take to make that work, there would be no space to run into at all, its daft

[sporadicsmiles]

If you are not enjoying the game, then I am sorry. You probably should just take a break from playing in that case. It is, after all, only a game. It should be played for enjoyment, like all games. If you are not getting that, then I think you are correct to not play. There is no point in having a pass time you do not enjoy.

I disagree with the idea on this thread that problems with tactics are not tactical, and are entirely down to the ME. While there are clearly issues with the ME in places, it is entirely possible to have success with normal tactics that do not exploit the weaknesses of the match engine. I think a lot of this comes down to expectations. If you are expected to win every single game you play, then you will be frustrated. It is not feasible to win every single game. Losing is part of football. This is why unrealistic tactics that exploit the ME are common and popular. People want to win every single game. Get back to back promotions and win the top league with a team from the 5th league within 5 years. These expectations are equally unrealistic. I do not say you, OP, think like this, it was more a general statement.

In addition to this, people want to win everything without putting in much effort. Often, players will want to just pick a tactic, a team and rush through everything to get as much winning as possible. This is not really something you can expect to be able to do either, and is another reason exploitative tactics are popular. There are not many games where you do not have to put effort in to beat the game. It would be extremely boring if FM was a game like this. You do have to learn how tactics work to succeed. You do need to understand which players can play where, how they interact with other players, what instructions do. This means, if you are not familiar with the way tactics work, you have to spend a fair bit of time just watching matches, observing how changes you make tactically impact the way your team is playing. There is not really a shortcut to take here. Nor should there be. If you could select any old tactic and win easily, people would rightly complain a lot more that the game is too easy.

For what it is worth (and this is again aimed generally, OP, since I truly think you would benefit from stepping back and playing other things until you can return to FM with more enjoyment), I think anyone can become competent at FM. Not all of us are going to master the game in a way some on this forum have. There are simple steps you can take. Have a firm idea in your head what you want your team to do. Start with one of the base tactics in the game and see if this is matching your expectations. Remove or add TIs and observe again to see how things change. Watch the players and how different roles affect their play, and how they interact with other players. Make sure you do not make mistakes like having a left footed player as a right sided winger. If you are seeing the same things over and over (like long balls over the top) then you can fix this. Lower defensive lines, faster defenders, etc. The game is not easy, but you can do it.

Finally, the fact that people use weird tactics to succeed does not mean that you cannot use regular ones and be successful. The ME is going in a good direction, I think. The new changes are very welcome and make tactics a little more intuitive. There are always going to be ways to exploit the ME, and there always have been . You do not have to choose to use these. Success can be gained using any tactic, if you have enough patience to make it work and you have the correct expectations. I am currently playing with what the game calls a 4141. I am not going anything fancy tactically, using roles that make sense, with a tactic that could be seen in real life. So far, I am likely to take my side to finish second in the league - which in France is about as good as I can expect with PSG dominating. There are plenty of threads on this forum of people achieving success without recourse to exploiting the ME. While I agree that I would like to see such exploits closed, it is not a reason to call the game broken. They are not the only way to succeed.

[THEMOUSTACHE]

There's times I feel like never playing the game ever again but I know this is just temporary frustration and realize I'm a die hard fan and the game is not perfect but nothing is perfect or easy.

Yep the match engine is weird and in regards to through balls... if your defenders don't have at least 15 POS and 15 ACC then forget it, you will get rekt on the counter. Play a deeper or standard d-line.

[lugui]

4 horas atrás, sporadicsmiles disse:

If you are not enjoying the game, then I am sorry. You probably should just take a break from playing in that case. It is, after all, only a game. It should be played for enjoyment, like all games. If you are not getting that, then I think you are correct to not play. There is no point in having a pass time you do not enjoy.

I disagree with the idea on this thread that problems with tactics are not tactical, and are entirely down to the ME. While there are clearly issues with the ME in places, it is entirely possible to have success with normal tactics that do not exploit the weaknesses of the match engine. I think a lot of this comes down to expectations. If you are expected to win every single game you play, then you will be frustrated. It is not feasible to win every single game. Losing is part of football. This is why unrealistic tactics that exploit the ME are common and popular. People want to win every single game. Get back to back promotions and win the top league with a team from the 5th league within 5 years. These expectations are equally unrealistic. I do not say you, OP, think like this, it was more a general statement.

In addition to this, people want to win everything without putting in much effort. Often, players will want to just pick a tactic, a team and rush through everything to get as much winning as possible. This is not really something you can expect to be able to do either, and is another reason exploitative tactics are popular. There are not many games where you do not have to put effort in to beat the game. It would be extremely boring if FM was a game like this. You do have to learn how tactics work to succeed. You do need to understand which players can play where, how they interact with other players, what instructions do. This means, if you are not familiar with the way tactics work, you have to spend a fair bit of time just watching matches, observing how changes you make tactically impact the way your team is playing. There is not really a shortcut to take here. Nor should there be. If you could select any old tactic and win easily, people would rightly complain a lot more that the game is too easy.

For what it is worth (and this is again aimed generally, OP, since I truly think you would benefit from stepping back and playing other things until you can return to FM with more enjoyment), I think anyone can become competent at FM. Not all of us are going to master the game in a way some on this forum have. There are simple steps you can take. Have a firm idea in your head what you want your team to do. Start with one of the base tactics in the game and see if this is matching your expectations. Remove or add TIs and observe again to see how things change. Watch the players and how different roles affect their play, and how they interact with other players. Make sure you do not make mistakes like having a left footed player as a right sided winger. If you are seeing the same things over and over (like long balls over the top) then you can fix this. Lower defensive lines, faster defenders, etc. The game is not easy, but you can do it.

Finally, the fact that people use weird tactics to succeed does not mean that you cannot use regular ones and be successful. The ME is going in a good direction, I think. The new changes are very welcome and make tactics a little more intuitive. There are always going to be ways to exploit the ME, and there always have been . You do not have to choose to use these. Success can be gained using any tactic, if you have enough patience to make it work and you have the correct expectations. I am currently playing with what the game calls a 4141. I am not going anything fancy tactically, using roles that make sense, with a tactic that could be seen in real life. So far, I am likely to take my side to finish second in the league - which in France is about as good as I can expect with PSG dominating. There are plenty of threads on this forum of people achieving success without recourse to exploiting the ME. While I agree that I would like to see such exploits closed, it is not a reason to call the game broken. They are not the only way to succeed.

This is just a great post, thanks for sharing such ideas and different ways of seeing things.

I was a bit unhappy with the game as well, but by reading this I got a feeling that what I need to do is actually sit down and work carefully, put some more effort in and lower some expectations.

[tyro]

12 hours ago, FMunderachiever said:

Hello everyone.

 

Im not sure whether its worth playing the game anymore.

 

It just seems like a constant source of frustration and in all honesty lack of enjoyment.

 

All successful formations seem to range from unusual to absolutely bonkers, and the same patterns appear over and over again, things like high press tactics being too vulnerable to througg balls than normal, no matter what training schedules i set up my strikers always being less clinical than the opposition, crosses being blocked over and over.

 

I dont know what will bring some enjoyment back. Im **** at the game admittedly but the game is too difficult in my opinion and it doesnt reflect real football that well imo.

 

Stick at it? Maybe pick a team to massage my ego?

Football manager is definitely a game for some but not for others. Many people enjoy it but some like other types of games. 

It is one's own subjective opinion.

For me, personally, this year's FM has been the most fun for a while. I love the new tactical styles and how the tactics were revamped. I love the new training and the mentoring. The match engine for me has improved (the visuals) and I enjoy these curled balls.

As for the new tactical styles. I've had 5 saves now and tried different ones. I only needed to make minor adjustments each time and am doing really well. It's a out man management and rotation. And check the roles. 

[Getthebeerens]

I suggest watching some of the talented streamers play the game. I found it a great help and good way to see how others play the game. 

I used to be a plug and play tactic person however last year on FM18 I finally got stuck into building my own tactics and the key to success was keeping it simple. I managed to take Colchester to the Premiership however what was more enjoyable was building the tactic that got me the success rather than winning the leagues.

This year with the new changes I have struggled a bit and kept restarting my saves. I think its more down to playing as the club I support and getting emotional about it (Those losses hurt a bit more) 

Anyways after restarting my new save I have found concentrating on the 1% gains has helped me a lot. For me these are using in game shouts to motivate the players (Never really used them before) and also using the training for up and coming matches. For example my team struggled on defending set pieces so I made sure they worked on them as part of match preparation.  

 

 

[Rashidi]

8 hours ago, Getthebeerens said:

I have found concentrating on the 1% gains has helped me a lot

This is a fantastic way of looking at the game. I think its a bit of understated brilliance. When you start focusing on incremental improvements you can make to the game you tend to learn a lot more and perform a lot better in the long run. 

[FrazT]

27 minutes ago, Rashidi said:

This is a fantastic way of looking at the game. I think its a bit of understated brilliance. When you start focusing on incremental improvements you can make to the game you tend to learn a lot more and perform a lot better in the long run. 

British Cycling went from being average to a world leader by appointing a coach to do nothing else but implement a 1% marginal gains strategy- so looking at everything that goes into any endeavour, improving  each bit by 1% won't show a noticeable improvement, but increasing them all by 1% will show a great improvement

[iMan]

9 hours ago, FrazT said:

British Cycling went from being average to a world leader by appointing a coach to do nothing else but implement a 1% marginal gains strategy- so looking at everything that goes into any endeavour, improving  each bit by 1% won't show a noticeable improvement, but increasing them all by 1% will show a great improvement

They improved their doping.

The FM equivalent would be improving your use of the in game editor. 

[sporadicsmiles]

21 hours ago, lugui said:

This is just a great post, thanks for sharing such ideas and different ways of seeing things.

I was a bit unhappy with the game as well, but by reading this I got a feeling that what I need to do is actually sit down and work carefully, put some more effort in and lower some expectations.

I'm more than happy to help. I understand the frustration at this game. I think we have all felt it at one point or another. I hope you rediscover your enjoyment!

[mcceda89]

I have played every version of FM even back in the Championship Manager days and I would say with the past 3 iterations of the game, I had the same mindset as you OP. I was so frustrated at the game from tactics to players to transfers. I found myself saving before every game and reloading when I didn't win. Looking back at that, where is the fun in that? 

I began to appreciate Football Manager by playing Dark Souls. Every game I played I would win with ease until I met Dark Souls and it gave me the beating of a lifetime. I refused to succumb to it. I adapted to the enrmies, learnt their strategies and every boss battle was a hard earned victory. It dawned on me one day "why am I not doing the same with Football Manager?"

I went back to Football Manager this year and I haven't had this much enjoyment playing in years. My ego used to hate losing but now.. as much as I still hate it.. I have the tools at my disposal to find out WHY I've lost in order to correct those mistakes. Recently in my Man United Dave, we got beat by Tottenham 2-1 in our opening match. I looked at the match in detail noticing little small errors we were making and for our match against Arsenal, I slightly tweaked my set up and we beat them 4-2.

Just persevere with it and take your time. With this year too I have found everything much more accommodating compared to previous versions.

[bar333]

On 03/12/2018 at 10:02, sporadicsmiles said:

If you are not enjoying the game, then I am sorry. You probably should just take a break from playing in that case. It is, after all, only a game. It should be played for enjoyment, like all games. If you are not getting that, then I think you are correct to not play. There is no point in having a pass time you do not enjoy.

I disagree with the idea on this thread that problems with tactics are not tactical, and are entirely down to the ME. While there are clearly issues with the ME in places, it is entirely possible to have success with normal tactics that do not exploit the weaknesses of the match engine. I think a lot of this comes down to expectations. If you are expected to win every single game you play, then you will be frustrated. It is not feasible to win every single game. Losing is part of football. This is why unrealistic tactics that exploit the ME are common and popular. People want to win every single game. Get back to back promotions and win the top league with a team from the 5th league within 5 years. These expectations are equally unrealistic. I do not say you, OP, think like this, it was more a general statement.

In addition to this, people want to win everything without putting in much effort. Often, players will want to just pick a tactic, a team and rush through everything to get as much winning as possible. This is not really something you can expect to be able to do either, and is another reason exploitative tactics are popular. There are not many games where you do not have to put effort in to beat the game. It would be extremely boring if FM was a game like this. You do have to learn how tactics work to succeed. You do need to understand which players can play where, how they interact with other players, what instructions do. This means, if you are not familiar with the way tactics work, you have to spend a fair bit of time just watching matches, observing how changes you make tactically impact the way your team is playing. There is not really a shortcut to take here. Nor should there be. If you could select any old tactic and win easily, people would rightly complain a lot more that the game is too easy.

For what it is worth (and this is again aimed generally, OP, since I truly think you would benefit from stepping back and playing other things until you can return to FM with more enjoyment), I think anyone can become competent at FM. Not all of us are going to master the game in a way some on this forum have. There are simple steps you can take. Have a firm idea in your head what you want your team to do. Start with one of the base tactics in the game and see if this is matching your expectations. Remove or add TIs and observe again to see how things change. Watch the players and how different roles affect their play, and how they interact with other players. Make sure you do not make mistakes like having a left footed player as a right sided winger. If you are seeing the same things over and over (like long balls over the top) then you can fix this. Lower defensive lines, faster defenders, etc. The game is not easy, but you can do it.

Finally, the fact that people use weird tactics to succeed does not mean that you cannot use regular ones and be successful. The ME is going in a good direction, I think. The new changes are very welcome and make tactics a little more intuitive. There are always going to be ways to exploit the ME, and there always have been . You do not have to choose to use these. Success can be gained using any tactic, if you have enough patience to make it work and you have the correct expectations. I am currently playing with what the game calls a 4141. I am not going anything fancy tactically, using roles that make sense, with a tactic that could be seen in real life. So far, I am likely to take my side to finish second in the league - which in France is about as good as I can expect with PSG dominating. There are plenty of threads on this forum of people achieving success without recourse to exploiting the ME. While I agree that I would like to see such exploits closed, it is not a reason to call the game broken. They are not the only way to succeed.

Actual success or lack of it is a red herring. Everyone and anyone can get good results on FM, as evidenced by people who post about their great results using nonsensical tactics - not game breaking or exploitative ones, but just pretty bad ones that they came up with, with 15 TI's ticked, full on attack roles, only the 2 CB's responsible for defending etc. You definitely do not need to "learn how tactics work to succeed", what instructions do, the minutiae of tactics, and certainly not how to adjust them to specific games and opponents. I've been playing since FM09 and had some terrible tactics when I was younger, I never failed to succeed in the game. Most people who play FM are not regular visitors of the tactics section here nor have good tactics and are successful nevertheless, were that not the case no one would be playing the game because failing isn't enjoyable.

In that sense the effect of tactics on success, I feel, is massively overstated here. 

So as far as I'm concerned success isn't the key point in the discussion. The real reason we are all here is because we have the football bug and not only do we want to succeed but we want to do in a certain way. Because we enjoy feeling like a virtual tactical guru. That is where the discussion on the ME becomes relevant - tactics don't work like you expect them to, and the game is far less enjoyable as a result. I've been getting the same results I always have in FM, consistently overachieving every season - yet I've still come here for advice on what is so horribly, horrendously wrong with my tactics that I cannot see any decent football on the ME, and I cannot get the team to do what I want. I'm not chasing better results - I'm chasing more enjoyment out of the game because as soon as I hit kick off I am bored out of my mind with a set piece bonanza and teams knocking the ball around horizontally across the final third for 20 seconds at a time before the inevitable blocked cross -> ball out of touch. That I get good results because my tactic is solid leading to slightly less turgid football than the AI's and a good chunk of goals from set pieces is not in any way satisfying to me. There comes a point where you can't blame tactics any more especially when they are very generic tactics that I've used in past FM's and was able to produce the football I wanted. 

If you feel like that truly comes down to tactics still you are more than welcome to take a look at my thread and offer advice, incidentally I'm also trying to set up the misnamed 4141. I've landed on a tactic where I well and truly cannot see the huge flaws in that would lead to what I'm seeing in the ME. There's nothing I'd love more than to finally "get it right" and enjoy the game as it is.

[sporadicsmiles]

6 minutes ago, bar333 said:

learn how tactics work to succeed

You do if you want to be able to transition between match engines. Any tactic that uses some kind of exploit will cease to function when that loophole is closed. You can see that happen many times over the years. Currently, the AI struggles against hyper aggressive tactics, which is entirely a problem in the AI coding (some of the hyper aggressive formations I see on here I know can be destroyed person vs person, I have tried). Your point that you do not need to understand tactics to succeed is technically true, but eventually you will have to start from scratch again and discover the next exploit. If that is the way people like to play, I have no issue with that, but for me it is not the sensible way to play. Currently, I am playing with the exact same tactic for around 4 iterations now, pretty much (variations are mainly based on the players available). I sincerely doubt many of the successful tactics from FM15 can be directly implemented without change in FM19.

10 minutes ago, bar333 said:

o as far as I'm concerned success isn't the key point in the discussion. The real reason we are all here is because we have the football bug and not only do we want to succeed but we want to do in a certain way. Because we enjoy feeling like a virtual tactical guru. That is where the discussion on the ME becomes relevant - tactics don't work like you expect them to, and the game is far less enjoyable as a result. I've been getting the same results I always have in FM, consistently overachieving every season - yet I've still come here for advice on what is so horribly, horrendously wrong with my tactics that I cannot see any decent football on the ME, and I cannot get the team to do what I want. I'm not chasing better results - I'm chasing more enjoyment out of the game because as soon as I hit kick off I am bored out of my mind with a set piece bonanza and teams knocking the ball around horizontally across the final third for 20 seconds at a time before the inevitable blocked cross -> ball out of touch. That I get good results because my tactic is solid leading to slightly less turgid football than the AI's and a good chunk of goals from set pieces is not in any way satisfying to me. There comes a point where you can't blame tactics any more especially when they are very generic tactics that I've used in past FM's and was able to produce the football I wanted. 

Well, perhaps I was too general in my previous statements. I could change it to we seek perfection. That perfection may be in result. It may be in getting a tactic to work perfectly how we want. Nevertheless, we seek perfection. There is no such thing, however. No team plays perfectly all the time either. Even Guardiola's sides will occasionally not play well. And to be fair, if you cannot get your tactics to do what you want, then it is most likely a problem in understanding how to translate your ideas into the game (not always, there are some thins you simply cannot do on FM yet, like pressing passing lanes). I can also point to the fact that people are able to create tactics which do play nice football.

Anyway, ultimately, everyone gets different enjoyment from different things, and that is fine. I will not try to convince you that you are wrong here. Your opinion is just as valid as my own. I would love to see further improvements to all aspects of the game, and discussion on what people do not enjoy or find annoying is key to that.

[bar333]

I don't see every tactic that isn't necessarily great but still produces great results as an exploitative tactic. 3 strikers in FM18 or strikerless in some other editions were exploitative, I'm not really sure on others since I never made any effort to seek them out. But most people play far more traditional tactics set up pretty badly and still succeed.

Again and I really don't say this with any sarcasm but very genuinely, I invite you to look at my thread that I've linked. I have jumped through hoops in terms of tweaking my tactics in FM19 to do what I want, and while my discussions here have made me understand how to translate what I want into the tactical creator a lot better, it's all theoretical knowledge at this point because nothing I do in practice is resulting in the kind of ME experience I would like. Many other people are in a similar boat having received a lot of great advice on this forum, internalized and understood it but still probably can't enjoy the game properly. I still love reading through the tactics section but the one thing I cannot get out of my head now is that due to FM19's limitations so much great advice and discussion feels hollow because it cannot be truly put into practice. I'd love to be proved wrong.

[mcceda89]

9 minutes ago, bar333 said:

I don't see every tactic that isn't necessarily great but still produces great results as an exploitative tactic. 3 strikers in FM18 or strikerless in some other editions were exploitative, I'm not really sure on others since I never made any effort to seek them out. But most people play far more traditional tactics set up pretty badly and still succeed.

Again and I really don't say this with any sarcasm but very genuinely, I invite you to look at my thread that I've linked. I have jumped through hoops in terms of tweaking my tactics in FM19 to do what I want, and while my discussions here have made me understand how to translate what I want into the tactical creator a lot better, it's all theoretical knowledge at this point because nothing I do in practice is resulting in the kind of ME experience I would like. Many other people are in a similar boat having received a lot of great advice on this forum, internalized and understood it but still probably can't enjoy the game properly. I still love reading through the tactics section but the one thing I cannot get out of my head now is that due to FM19's limitations so much great advice and discussion feels hollow because it cannot be truly put into practice. I'd love to be proved wrong.

I would disagree with you man,the advice on these forums and any forums really are fantastic. Rashid and his Bust the Net series on YouTube has been an absolute godsend for me, as is Tea and Busquets. I feel your frustration I really do, but your setting yourself up for a fall with the negativity. Don't focus on the limitations of FM, focus on the advantages and the sheet amount of tools you have at your disposal. Remember, advice is advice and it's meant to be taken as a guide for you to implement. I think your focusing too much on limitations rather than what is in front of you and it's impacting you're enjoyment but I honestly can't agree with you saying the advice is hollow because it really isn't when put into practice.