"The other teams lEaRn YoUr TaCtIcS"

[IrrelevantLion]

Football manager in an image. Same players, same tactic. Now I'm favourite for getting sacked 

[Prej]

Ok. And?

Lots of variables to consider, even bad luck.

[IrrelevantLion]

1 minute ago, Prej said:

Ok. And?

Lots of variables to consider, even bad luck.

It feels like morale is highly unrealistic in this game, in terms of massive peaks and immediate drops. 

[Prej]

Just now, IrrelevantLion said:

It feels like morale is highly unrealistic in this game, in terms of massive peaks and immediate drops. 

What does your team report say in terms of mentals?

[Freakiie]

Yeah, morale can definitely be a finicky thing in FM. Playing well on great morale makes sense, but the ease at which you hit great morale, but vice versa also the rate at which you can instantly plummet to abysmal morale is something I hope SI has looked at for FM21. Hitting extremes on either end and staying there should be toned down a bit.

[bielsadidnothingwrong]

I don’t see the problem. Learn to adapt.

[Zemahh]

Teams can't "learn your tactics", but what they can do, is adapt the way they approach the match based on your reputation and form. They can't see your tactic, but they can say "oh, the team we're facing next won 5 in a row, we better use a Cautious Mentality and defensive full-backs against them". And just like that, overly attacking tactics stop working, because the space they rely on is no longer there.

Besides that, bad patches of form are something normal in football. Apart from tactical tweaks, it's also important you don't suddenly start trashing your team during team talks; that may fire them up, but also lower their morale even further. Be sympathetic until you get back to the winning ways, praise their training performances and conduct regularly (free morale boosters) and bench players in bad form. Sometimes a youngster can perform better than your star player with all the attributes in the world, but in bad form.

What I will give you though, is that AI can be a bit extreme with the way it decides to approach the match. The moment you start winning, you will face nothing but DM formations and Cautious or Defensive Mentalities, which can make the game very dull, very fast.

[Phillybear]

How did Arsenal end up in the championship?

[sporadicsmiles]

Teams do not learn your tactics. It would be kinda more fun if they did, but the way they react to a player is a lot more basic than that. They react to how well you are doing and your reputation. 

The real question here is how did you respond to these results? Did you stick to the same thing that isn't working? Stick to the same players? Try a different tactic in every game? Slumps in form happen.

[Mattias333]

15 hours ago, IrrelevantLion said:

Football manager in an image. Same players, same tactic. Now I'm favourite for getting sacked 

See I always get a little spell like this. Once I find a few tactics that work for me I generally have one go to tactic an another for special reasons an a final one for seeing out games. 
 

obviously my main one is the one predominantly used. Take my current save. Aldershot. Back to back promotions. Huge win loss record (70% win). Over 30 goals scored more than next nearest team. 
 

yet suddenly out of nowhere I hit a purple patch. On my current save in January 2nd season I suddenly couldn’t win. Even against bottom of the league. I put this down to teams changing how they approached my side, injuries, suspensions an fatigued. I had a cracking cup run in multiple competitions. However that meant I played catch up in the league an eventually something was going to break. I was still dominating games an creating chances. Just no luck. Eventually it turned though an now on a 6 game winning streak. All I did was tweaked my approach an tactics slightly until the corner was turned an then returned to my old tactic I was using an bingo back on form. 

[isignedupfornorealreason]

Really, the only thing that would annoy me in that run of fixtures would be the points dropped at Home.

Away defeats are something I'd 100% accept. Even as a top team, I'm always happy to scrape 1-0 wins or 0-0 draws away from home and won't be too critical of defeats. But Home form absolutely should be something like 75% wins and the rest draws unless you're superbly outclassed. I cannot tolerate poor home form and that's when the alarm bells should be going. It looks to me like you maybe didn't stop the rot with the initial two home games and maybe were too harsh when losing at Birmingham, and then heaped on the pressure at home to Brentford perhaps? Ease off the pressure and try to secure some more home wins.

[Dagenham_Dave]

The amount of people who fail to understand 'form' is staggering. 

[Wavelberry]

I think the most annoying thing in FM20 is the fact that the morale has a massive impact on form and turning it around can be really difficult. Also that the morale issue makes you go on longer runs then you might be used to. Certainly has been my experience and one of the reasons I didn't jive with FM20 as much is it seemed that nothing you could do could get you out of one of those runs (and I mean both winning and losing ones). It was almost like a switch flip and was nothing like I'd experienced in previous iterations.

[Overmars]

4 hours ago, Wavelberry said:

I think the most annoying thing in FM20 is the fact that the morale has a massive impact on form and turning it around can be really difficult. Also that the morale issue makes you go on longer runs then you might be used to. Certainly has been my experience and one of the reasons I didn't jive with FM20 as much is it seemed that nothing you could do could get you out of one of those runs (and I mean both winning and losing ones). It was almost like a switch flip and was nothing like I'd experienced in previous iterations.

I find it incredibly frustrating with how form often overpowers individual player ability. If I have a player who has scored in consecutive games then I know he is so much more likely to score in the next game than someone with the same attributes who hasn't scored in a few matches. Similarly, when I have a player earn a rating of 6.2 in one match, I know there is a decent chance he'll do the same thing in one of the next few matches as well, You can get strikers slumping for half a season or more because they become unplayable after their "10 hours of competitive football without scoring" streak, and central defenders who pick up a goal or two from corners will start winning tons of headers defensively because they are in good form.

I just don't think that's how form works in the real world, where luck and random variance is more what dictates form.

[fivetwelvepony]

I was surprised to learn a while back that teams don't react to your tactic, as I had a similar experience. I had this idea in the middle of one season to implement a River Plate type formation, where I stacked a narrow midfield in a 4-1-3-2 to create lots of passing options to dominate the middle of the park. If anything, our form was poor at the time. That's why I was switching things up.

Our first game, with little training or familiarity, we win easily and our heat map looked like a giant orange blob right in the middle of the park. It was beautiful, exactly as I imagined it. The opposition was the opposite -- a giant blank spot in their heat map in the middle of the field. The next three or so games were similar. I started getting excited, sending my scouts out to find players to fit this tactic. But then, out of the blue, no more dominating possession in the middle. It wasn't just that I was losing, which I was, but that the tactic wasn't playing in the same way. I was never able to get that early success back.

So, it was quite surprising when I read that the AI only responds to your reputation. I assumed that at the very least, the AI manager would receive the same opposition report of me that I do of them. Yet the developers say it isn't so, and I guess they would know.  I still find it hard to believe.

[Dagenham_Dave]

5 hours ago, Wavelberry said:

I think the most annoying thing in FM20 is the fact that the morale has a massive impact on form 

Which is exactly the same as real life. 

[Wavelberry]

1 hour ago, Dagenham_Dave said:

Which is exactly the same as real life. 

Aye it is, but in FM20 it feels a lot more 'gamey' than real life due to the mad runs of form. In this particular version it seems a lot more egregious than in previous ones. That's not to say it's not on the right track to have morale impact form but I personally feel FM20 moved the dial too far towards morale being an overriding factor for success.

[Dagenham_Dave]

Personally I haven't seen any difference to any previous version. 

[Tony Wright 747]

1 hour ago, Dagenham_Dave said:

Personally I haven't seen any difference to any previous version. 

In my limited experience with FM20 (demo) It seems easier to raise morale in older versions

[FlorianAlbert9]

The issue could be the games won. 

Why have to be always the lost ones?

[Wavelberry]

11 hours ago, Tony Wright 747 said:

In my limited experience with FM20 (demo) It seems easier to raise morale in older versions

There are fair few gaming tactics that can be used in this iteration

 

9 hours ago, FlorianAlbert9 said:

The issue could be the games won. 

Why have to be always the lost ones?

I have gone on some mad winning runs as a midtable side (usually followed by mad losing runs) where even when I am expecting a tough game I'm suddenly smashing peeps 3-0 if I am in the middle of this golden period (if it is not then I have definitely conceded a stupid goal or two). The more I think about it the more I am inclined to believe that the graphical feedback I am getting is not really effectively communicating the issues I am having and TBF coz most of the football looks the same this year that might be part of the issue.

[zyfon5]

14 hours ago, Wavelberry said:

Aye it is, but in FM20 it feels a lot more 'gamey' than real life due to the mad runs of form. In this particular version it seems a lot more egregious than in previous ones. That's not to say it's not on the right track to have morale impact form but I personally feel FM20 moved the dial too far towards morale being an overriding factor for success.

Southampton last season will like to have a word with you

[Wavelberry]

37 minutes ago, zyfon5 said:

Southampton last season will like to have a word with you

Why? Their morale wasn't shattered by the 9-0 and if it was results and performances certainly didn't bear it out, they did pretty well in the following games they lost to Man City. Morale and motivation are such finickity things they are really difficult to get right, it's certainly not an easy job to do. I still maintain the balance is not in FM20 or the way it is used is too impactful on the entire side rather than specific individuals.

[bpecanha]

That's how it happens IRL also. My favourite team (Vasco da Gama) started the Brazilian league with four wins, two draws and one loss in the first seven games (14 points), fighting for the 1st place. Now look where we are after 16 games. Relegation zone.

And guess why it happened: because our manager started with a good tactical setup, but teams quickly responded to that and he couldn't answer back. Also morale levels dropped so hard after a sequence of losses, so he got sacked. 

You draw one game, then you try to make things different and only make it worse. Then you draw again, then lose, lose, lose... and your squad morale goes downhill. You need to get back to basics and find what's happening. Usually, I get better results when I make small changes instead of tweaking everything (but this is more a personal experience).