I haven't played FM in ages

[Ediocy]

There is really nothing wrong with moving on in life, not that playing FM, or in general computer games, is merely a generic phase in one's life that is dictated by age. But as lawsie already mentioned, as you grow older, you generally get saddled with more responsibilities and depending on your personal situation, you may or may not have the luxury to spend your limited recreation time as freely as you had used to.

If due to whatever reasons, you find you do not have enough time or even the inclination to spend your limited recreation time to play the same game you have been playing the past five or ten years, just stop playing. Perhaps you need a new game to inspire you, or perhaps you need to fully stop playing computer games and find inspiration elsewhere, be it sports, your career, your family, or just something else.

[Hammer1000]

I do empathise with you Mike, i really do.

Its all the in game tweaking that is necessary now that is ruining this game for me. Dont get me wrong, i dont want an easy game, but how am i supposed to enjoy having to make such tweaks when i dont really know what i'm doing?

Its basically all guess work, so even if i do get it right there is no sense of achievement because i dont even know why it worked?

I've still pretty much managed to overachieve despite all this, but i still feel like i'm playing blind? If i had some idea of what i was doing right/wrong then i could probably enjoy the game a lot more, but i'm just plodding along practically clueless?

The idea of the Tactical Wizard to be introduced into FM2010 sounds great initially, but i'm yet to envisage how this will help me understand how/when to make those in game tweaks and to understand WHY its working, rather than just accepting that it works?

Another massive frustration is that just when you are starting to get to grips with certain parts of the game, a new patch is introduced that very much puts you back to square one.

It feels like the last 2 or 3 versions of the game that SI have been concentrating on ridding the game of "Super Tactics", which again is actually a good thing, although initially all this really meant was that you would witness dozens of games a season where you have 30 shots to the AI's 1 shot and lose 0-1. As well as that, we pretty much lost the arrows(barrows, farrows etc) as apparently this took advantage of weaknesses in the ME?

Thing was, nobody was trying to take advantage of anything, they were simply trying to find the best mix of instructions possible allowed by the tactical set up? if things continue in this vein, it wont be too long before we are all having to set up our tactics in identical fashion?

At the end of the day however frustrating it may be, as crazy as it may sound to some, you really cannot blame SI. They are still producing a game that is meeting all its sales targets and whilst it continues to do so, there is really no pressure on them to do things differently?

[Rupal]

I must admit I have never fully understood the obsession which SI appears to have with getting rid of 'super tactics'. Why do they want to do it?

I honestly cannot see that it matters in the slightest if it is possible to produce a tactic which 'breaks the ME'. If somebody wants to play the game which he/she has bought in that way why shouldn't they? Nobody is compelled to use such a tactic any more than anyone is forced to save the game before each match and replay if the result doesn't suit. Some people do this, I am sure, and, again, why on earth shouldn't they if that's how they want to play? Nobody appears to think that the whole FM experience is ruined by this saving possibility so why should a 'super tactic' ruin the game either? 'Serious' FM players wouldn't use such a tactic anyway so where's the damage?

If someone could explain what is so terrible about somebody 'taking advantage' in this way I'd be very interested. As things stand, I just can't see why it's viewed as a problem at all.

[Hazzydeepy]

to the OP: maybe its your tactics?

This message really annoys me and it's getting boring. Can you imagine how you would feel if someone said ' It's you tactics' in your thread which you need help in?

[Mike7077]

Lots of interesting posts in here, coupled with a little squabbling! But that's General Discussion for you.

Anyway, I loaded the game up before bed last night and, as I said in a previous post, felt the familiar feelings of frustration as I watched my Inverness CT team lose 1-0 at Motherwell despite being far the better side (not a criticism of the game because this kind of thing happens). However, I took a step back and decided to be positive and see the plus-points of the performance. Next game, beat Rangers 2-1 playing a very similar way, which actually felt great. I won't say it instantly cured all my problems, but it was nice to find out that the game can still put a smile on my face. What was especially pleasing was feeling like I could actually see why we beat Rangers and what it was about our approach to the game that got us such a good result.

[Mike7077]

to the OP: maybe its your tactics?

This message really annoys me and it's getting boring. Can you imagine how you would feel if someone said ' It's you tactics' in your thread which you need help in?

Yeah, that post did annoy me a little, but not in the obvious way. I know the guy was just kidding around, but there's nothing more annoying than when you see the same joke repeated for the 1,000 time!

Anyway, seeing as I haven't always got the time to dedicate to my tactics, it probably is my tactics, to some degree at least.

[hursty2]

I've also lost interest and have looked through the CSE forum and can't find anything that I like.

I need to get back into this game for the holidays:P

[Impzie]

Yeah, that post did annoy me a little, but not in the obvious way. I know the guy was just kidding around, but there's nothing more annoying than when you see the same joke repeated for the 1,000 time!

Anyway, seeing as I haven't always got the time to dedicate to my tactics, it probably is my tactics, to some degree at least.

You know, I have seen that joke at least a hundred times on this forum, and I am still chuckling at it. I guess my sense of humor is extremely high or that I laugh at everything. Heh. I guess I do. I think the main thing is because FM09 is not a game that lets you win easily as long as you follow steps 1, 2 and 3. I mean I had 2 games that exactly describes this well. Let's all admit, we play to win. If we lose, 95% of the players here will have a petulant rant about everything but in essence we are saying "I WANT TO WIN, AND YOUR STUPID GAME IS NOT LETTING ME WIN!"

First match: Newcastle Home match. I was 1-10 favorite. I have 25 shots, 2/3 of them are on target. Score? 1-1.

Second match: Arsenal Away match. I was 9/4. I have less shots, less possession, and somehow manage to escape with a 2-1 score due to a change of tactics at half time.

Frustrating? Sure. I guess it's part of the game. Imagine the amount of anger a real life manager gets when that happens ^^

[Themistofelis]

If we lose, 95% of the players here will have a petulant rant about everything but in essence we are saying "I WANT TO WIN, AND YOUR STUPID GAME IS NOT LETTING ME WIN!"

Losing fair and square is okay , defeat is part of football and i don't see why would anyone play a game where losing is out of the deal but losing when you are clearly the best = EPIC FAIL and this goes to any game .

[dazbowski]

This message really annoys me and it's getting boring. Can you imagine how you would feel if someone said ' It's you tactics' in your thread which you need help in?

agreed, it's wasn't funny the first time and it's not the 1000th time, it's moronic!

[Bananas]

Losing fair and square is okay , defeat is part of football and i don't see why would anyone play a game where losing is out of the deal but losing when you are clearly the best = EPIC FAIL and this goes to any game .

But isn't that pretty much the beauty of football (and sports in general)? Anything can happen, that's sort of the point of playing the game in the first place.

As for the OP, I'm finding myself in pretty much the same position although I hate to admit it. The complex nature of the game is not something I am opposed to (I'm 32, by the way), but since the parameters of success on the pitch are now so numerous, we really need better analytical tools to utilise them. The way it stands right now, tweaking can get you success, but to a certain extent I often find myself unsure as to exactly what it is I am doing, even when I occasionally watch the full match.

[Themistofelis]

But isn't that pretty much the beauty of football (and sports in general)? Anything can happen, that's sort of the point of playing the game in the first place.

The luck factor do play some role in many games but developers are trying to keep it's impact to a minimum , this is not the case with FM .

I am still having fm07 running minimised in my home computer playing 1-2 matches at afternoon while talking to phone or smoking before switching to something more appealing.

I think the OP needs to play some more action oriented games , try mount & blade , it is combat only and involves a lot of mouse + keyboard action.

[Guest Joshlee]

same here..........I used to be obsessed with every version of fm....

but then...I just reealize that I havn't touch my fm09 for more than 3 months....

god...I used to be those people who keep checking on forum for the new patch come out. But for this time, I had just get on and download it yesterday,since the patch came out for more that months.....

whats the problem?

Am I getting older who losing interest on this game?....thats sad

[arsenal_2111]

Actually when you get older you gain responsibilities. Housing costs, working 14 hours a day, wife, kids etc. I myself used to play this game everyday (its previous incarnations) but now i have some of the aforementioned things in my life i simply do not and can not play this game anymore. You will understand for yourself how much life takes out of your gaming time no matter how much of a nerd or geek you may be. Only the hard core geeks still play games all the time when they hit around 23+

Not having time to play games is completely different to not wanting to play them.

[lawsie]

well ok then. AS i have aged, my need and want to play games has diminshed too then. Good enough?

[stokes_83]

There is an easy fix. Download FML.

I fell out of love with FM 09 as well, but when I downloaded FML my life forever changed for the worse....because I am obsessed with the game.

[lawsie]

Played it, stopped payments. I did not like that game at all. Its football manager live right? Not football manager against AI? which is exactly what it was for me... i went through a season playing just 1 human player. Nice online game.

[totti_is_god]

The OP, who, conveniently, appears to be about the same age as me, has done a good job of describing my feelings about the game. I did wonder, like him, whether it might be age-related, except I have a very clear sense of when my addiction to the game began to diminish, and it is highly coincidental: when the match engine was first implemented. I was hooked on CM (as it was then) for as long as it was text only, and have found the whole experience rather awkward and less enjoyable since then. Maybe the match engine should not take all the shame; much the same can be said for FM's yawnsome media element, which, on its current setting, will continue to be tedious for many years to come. I noticed, a couple of days ago, that the CM website (Yes, I visited the CM website!) was offering a free download of CM 01/02; I'm very tempted to relive what remains, in my view, the best game in the series.

[crouchaldinho]

I'm actually quite sad because this will be the first negative message regarding FM that I have ever posted. However, after reading Mike7077's opening post, I felt I had to reply, because I have been having the same feelings about FM over the last month or so.

A couple of weeks ago, I got so frustrated with FM09 that I just decided to stop playing entirely for a while to get some perspective. So I immediately cut it out of my life and stopped playing altogether. During this time, I have found very little to bring me back to FM09.

My frustrations aren’t down to a lack of success or a failure in the game as I have had some good success in FM09 with a simple approach. But I am so tired of the tactical interface and so fed up with trying to translate tactical ideas into an FM tactic. It can just be so dull and laborious and, usually for me, it involves watching quite a few matches in ‘full match’ mode and tweaking in order to see if I am getting the desired effects. It just takes up too much time and it is time that I just don’t have at this point in my life.

Like Mike7077, I’m not trying to rant. I've even been accused of being a 'fanboy' before. I have loved this game for so long. But I’ve lost a lot of pleasure in the game this year. I can’t work out exactly where it has all gone wrong for me. I just feel that it takes an enormous effort to pick up and play sometimes. I don’t want to make that kind of effort for a game which is essentially supposed to be a leisure activity for those spare hours in the evenings or over the weekends. I guess I get frustrated because you can’t just load up FM and play for half-an-hour. Or at least I can’t anyway. It all seems to take so long.

Today, for the first time in two weeks, I got the urge to start up FM09. I thought about starting a new save but I realised that I would need a spare two hours to get started. Even then, I would barely have played a game during pre-season.

I just wonder if I have reached a point in my life where perhaps it is time to call it a day?

Click, click, process, process. Nothing changes. Everything is exactly the same.

I feel exactly like you Mike. I ask myself, why am I bothering with this? What am I getting from this? Wouldn’t I rather read a book or listen to some music?

Just like you Mike, the game also makes me grumpy. I’m grumpy because I feel like I ought to be enjoying it more. I feel totally fed up and frustrated because I can't enjoy it.

I have a theory about this. I believe that we are in love with the actual idea of football management. A simulation of it should be great, right? You can reflect your ideas about how the game should be played in your tactics. You can get your favourite player to score lots of goals or perform really well. Should you play 4-4-2 or 4-5-1 etc.? You might even win the odd trophy!

Then we are faced with the reality. Click, click. Tweak, tweak. More forward runs? Lower mentality? Oh no, I’ve been playing for an hour and I’ve only managed to play one match.

That’s why I get grumpy with the game anyway. I just don’t have the time for it all and I don’t have the energy to put into it when I feel like I get so little in return.

I'm not sure how much of this is the game's fault or how much of it is my fault. I mean, the database is amazing and I'm not sure there is a better management game out there. Is there? I don't know anymore.

In the last two weeks, when I have taken some time out from playing, I haven’t felt angry or annoyed and I have enjoyed my leisure time. I have missed the dream of being a football manager though. Today, I was really hankering after starting a new game and building a team with my preferred tactical style and approach. Then I thought of setting the training, playing around with mentality notches and how long it would all take, and I really couldn’t be bothered. But I do miss it so much.

I don’t know where I go from here. Whether I will pick up FM09 in a few weeks time and all will be forgiven, I can't say. In truth though, I really can’t stand the idea of loading it up at the moment. That’s the sad truth. I’m glad, in a way, to find that I’m not the only one who feels this way.

C.

[crouchaldinho]

I wonder if it is FM09 that has made us feel this way though?

Without wishing to sound like I am ranting, I find some aspects of 09 very frustrating and dull.

The press conferences, for instance, are just about the most repetitive and annoying new ‘feature’ in 09. They are such a waste of time. I haven’t really found out how to make them work to my advantage. It seems that roughly the ‘safe’ answers each time are the best bet. The player reactions are poor, with no real information apart from a ‘positive’ or ‘negative’ reaction. There seems to be no reason or rhyme to them really. To perfect them or even to get the idea of what they mean would take ages testing each option and even then, I’m not sure how much fun you could get out of it. I much preferred the media in 08.

Don’t even get me started on some of the stuff that really annoys me on FM09. The constant takeovers are one of them. Team Bath, the University team currently in BSS, have been taken over by a consortium from France in my game! They are now stupidly rich, have Paul Merson as manager and have signed a Championship rated striker for 500k. This is in Blue Square South for goodness sake!

I’m four seasons in and at least half of the teams in Blue Square South have ditched their entire playing squad and are now made up of players who my scouts say are at least good enough for League 2. Then there is the feeder club issue, where teams in the BSS end up having top quality players on loan from Premier League or Championship clubs, which just does not happen in real life. As a researcher for a BSS club, this is really frustrating, because I rate the players realistically and most of them won't even get into the first team after a year.

Going back to the press conferences, things like that just generally add to the ‘plodding along’ nature of FM09. It just seems to be so much slower (and I have a decent laptop as well). The match day 3D experience takes such a long time. I’m not even sure I like the new match view or the whole way it is setup. I actually don’t even think I really like the 3D view either. Matches seem to take so much longer to get going.

I was thinking about this last night and I actually loaded up FM08 to have a quick look at it. Everything seemed so much more responsive. Last year, I genuinely had fun in FM08. True, there were some of the same frustrations, but it was very playable and kept me coming back for more.

Even though I would really like a Football Manager fix this weekend, I just can’t bring myself to load up FM09. Is it just my own apathy and lack of interest or has FM09 finally turned me off?

C.

[Blanchflower1]

I also feel the same way sometimes!!

[Champion]

I wonder if it is FM09 that has made us feel this way though?

Without wishing to sound like I am ranting, I find some aspects of 09 very frustrating and dull.

The press conferences, for instance, are just about the most repetitive and annoying new ‘feature’ in 09. They are such a waste of time. I haven’t really found out how to make them work to my advantage. It seems that roughly the ‘safe’ answers each time are the best bet. The player reactions are poor, with no real information apart from a ‘positive’ or ‘negative’ reaction. There seems to be no reason or rhyme to them really. To perfect them or even to get the idea of what they mean would take ages testing each option and even then, I’m not sure how much fun you could get out of it. I much preferred the media in 08.

Don’t even get me started on some of the stuff that really annoys me on FM09. The constant takeovers are one of them. Team Bath, the University team currently in BSS, have been taken over by a consortium from France in my game! They are now stupidly rich, have Paul Merson as manager and have signed a Championship rated striker for 500k. This is in Blue Square South for goodness sake!

I’m four seasons in and at least half of the teams in Blue Square South have ditched their entire playing squad and are now made up of players who my scouts say are at least good enough for League 2. Then there is the feeder club issue, where teams in the BSS end up having top quality players on loan from Premier League or Championship clubs, which just does not happen in real life. As a researcher for a BSS club, this is really frustrating, because I rate the players realistically and most of them won't even get into the first team after a year.

Going back to the press conferences, things like that just generally add to the ‘plodding along’ nature of FM09. It just seems to be so much slower (and I have a decent laptop as well). The match day 3D experience takes such a long time. I’m not even sure I like the new match view or the whole way it is setup. I actually don’t even think I really like the 3D view either. Matches seem to take so much longer to get going.

I was thinking about this last night and I actually loaded up FM08 to have a quick look at it. Everything seemed so much more responsive. Last year, I genuinely had fun in FM08. True, there were some of the same frustrations, but it was very playable and kept me coming back for more.

Even though I would really like a Football Manager fix this weekend, I just can’t bring myself to load up FM09. Is it just my own apathy and lack of interest or has FM09 finally turned me off?

C.

I think this mood of frustration in you all is mainly due to critical bugs in the game and dumb repetitive nature, especially of media and press. I hope FM10 will be realistic, fun, and less time consuming. So you all get hooked to it again.

[earmack]

All games are repetitive if you play them for 100's of hours. Also FM is a bunch of spreadsheets, you make of it what you want. Only if you fool yourself into caring about a team or players will you enjoy the game, otherwise your just their for the win and if you don't win you get angry and bored.

[heathxxx]

Very interesting post and given at the ripe old age (well not that old), of 35, I msut say that I feel the same way in some respects. I too have a lot more responsibilities in life that must come before my gaming (not just FM), though I do still spend possibly too much time gaming overall.

The killer for me recently was perhaps the frustration of losing a superb save that I was enjoying greatly and had been posting about in detail in the T&T forum. That particular save was to be my long term save and I don't know if I can bring myself to start another long term save. I am a big Man Utd fan, but I always end up getting bored after a couple of seasons winning everything and prefer more of a challenge.

Now this might sound like I'm bragging, but believe me I'm not, but I'm perhaps very fortunate that I've always been able to produce good tactics for myself and have shared them on the forums from time to time. Obviously how others do with them is another matter, but for myself, I've never had any issues there.

I love the depth of FM and actually do like the growing involvement. I would agree that there's points such as the media interaction which get repetitive and tiresome after a while and perhaps think that SI are trying to get too far ahead of themselves by when they feel they must implement plenty of new features with each release. One problem is that the AI technology just isn't available to trully make the game as interactive as I'm sure SI would really like. That's understandable of course, because they have to create something new that encourages people to buy each release. If each release was just the same as the previous, but just had an updated database, I doubt it would be enough to get them the sales figures they enjoy each year. That said though, having tried other management sims on occasion, nothing has beaten the FM series in my opinion.

Recently I have been playing a variety of other games. This last week has been spent playing GTA IV, as I've always enjoyed the series. Although I enjoyed the game, I felt that it was a lot shorter than I expected and have completed it already. I've also borrowed (and already completed) Brothers in Arms: Hells Highway from my dad, who's 59 and has probably played every FPS that's out there! The game that I'm most eagerly anticipating (as is my dad), is the next Operation Flashpoint shooter. I've read that the AI will knock the socks of anything we've seen before, so "repetitive" is something that won't apply.

I probably will start another FM save, with Granada CF in the Segunda B4 and see how far I can take them. It's a good challenge to see if I can guide a provincial Spanish club to competing with the might of Barça and Real Madrid. It's just I don't feel the pull to do so at the moment.

Perhaps I too have seen this coming. I didn't buy FM09 until February this year. Normally I've had the previous releases within a week or two of release, but this year it was a combination of factors that made me wait. I decided that I would wait until at least a couple of patches were available and I was also happily playing a very long term game with FM08. Although I probably will inevitably buy FM10 at some point, there's still a little doubt in my mind as to if I will or not and keep playing FM09 when I feel inclined to do so.

[sthptngomad76]

Mike sounds he's suffering the classic symptoms of an addict. I know; I'm an FM addict too. Over the years there have been many times that I've been angry with the game for affecting my personal life and job, I've been bored, I've been frustrated, I've deleted all the files, put it away for months at a time .... and yet I always come back.

By the way, to the 17-year-old who's grown out of FM - I'm 47, young whipper-snapper!

Sometimes it's due to my circumstances changing and finding more free time or a tolerant partner; sometimes it's my craving or a new edition of the game - mostly a mix of the lot. But I always come back. My guess is that Mike will leave it a few weeks then return with zest to his real true love.

You are my hero, andy!

What annoys me here is people assuming that others will grow out of games when they hit their mid 20s. Remember that the current generation are growing up with games becoming a legitimate form of entetainment as well as a form of narrative (like a film or novel), as opposed to perhaps the late 70s where games were only something 'kids' would play at an arcade. For previous generations, sure they may have grown out of those games, but for the current generation where games have a far greater depth, target audience, etc who's to say that they need to 'grow out of it'?

[Kickballz]

You are my hero, andy!

What annoys me here is people assuming that others will grow out of games when they hit their mid 20s. Remember that the current generation are growing up with games becoming a legitimate form of entetainment as well as a form of narrative (like a film or novel), as opposed to perhaps the late 70s where games were only something 'kids' would play at an arcade. For previous generations, sure they may have grown out of those games, but for the current generation where games have a far greater depth, target audience, etc who's to say that they need to 'grow out of it'?

The point many have made isn't so much that they grow out of games. The point being made by many people is that they previously played this series a lot but now they don't have the same amount of time to invest in it because they have more responsibilities whether it is career, family, children etc. I seriously doubt anyone would actually be bothering to post on this forum if they had genuinely 'grown out of it'.

[dhop]

I don't have the oppotunity to get bored as mine hasn't been working for the last 6 weeks and I hope cm09 is good as there customer support will be a lot more helpful

[LaurieJay]

When you have no game in progress it can be hard to start a new game' date=' i for one struggled when my game of 5 season's went corupt on me..

i think if you set your self a new challenge with a new team once you get a season into it you will enoy it again, it's hard starting a new game because of the perfection needed.[/quote']

And you lose all your managerial stats

I was tempted to go back to FM 2008 as i've realised my laptop can't handle the more powerful FM 2009 plus no 3D Graphics.I think you should be able to save your managerial stats so you can use on new games instead of starting from scratch (theres just no motivation to do so)

And has anyone found when u play the game for the 1st time in a few days,you seem to win a game or two?! (is that the games way of getting u hooked again??)

[jack_man]

I was like that, decided o set up a new game and got beat away at Boro!! Just managed not to turn it off though!

[Marko An.]

I try to motivate myself also to get back to the game, and get that special feeling I got in the "old days", when the game was more fun. I think that the complicated tactics system and tons of features that are only cosmetic and anoyingly repetitive ruined the game.

I too hope that the new CM will be something that we all ask from SI for years to be done in the FM. Or at least to chalenge this game, so Sega/SI get the message we are trying to send them.

FM is showing it's signs of slow extinction, there's time for this to be changed, but... it remains to be seen.

[crouchaldinho]

Well, I’ve really tried to give FM09 a go again this afternoon.

I got going on a new game with Liverpool, just to get back into it and to give it a chance again. It is only meant to be a short-term mess around to get me hooked so that I can start a new long-term game.

I turned off the 3D as I’m fed up with how long it takes to play a game and how it looks. I went back to 2D classic. Much better.

I turned off press conferences, as I am sick of them. The trouble is, my assistant took them over and his answers sometimes seem bizarre. I mean, why tell the press that he thinks Manchester United are going to win the title? He upset the whole squad.

Anyway, I started getting really into it. Simple tactics that were working well. Team gelling issues plus half the squad didn’t like me as I was ‘unproven’. Nice challenging start to the season. 2D classic looking great. I was enjoying myself.

Then, I started to get grumpy and annoyed with the game again. It’s not because I’m doing poorly either, so nobody can say, ‘it’s your tactics’. I’m winning games, top of the league, playing decent football most of the time. Unlike many people, I have found the tactical side ok, mostly just implementing the same simple ideas I used in FM08.

Anyway, I now know what I don’t like about FM09. It’s the whole media and team talks business.

For a start, press conferences are a step back from FM08. So repetitive and dull. Even if you get your assistant to do them, he will sometimes give ridiculous answers and upset the players. All you get is a line in the player profile along the lines of ‘reacted negatively to comments in the media’. I’m sure in 08, there was more info, something that made it seem slightly more interesting. At the moment, press conferences just feel like some awful multiple choice game where you either get it right or wrong. There is no complexity there. It’s a 1 or a 0.

Then there is the team talks, which have somewhat baffled me on this version. On FM08, I thought the team talks were fairly logical. On 09, things seem far more sensitive and I don’t think the assistant feedback is good enough. Admittedly, this is my fault in a way because this is my main weakness in the game. But I’m just frustrated that I can’t seem to pick the ‘logical’ option. ‘You can win this game’ doesn’t seem to mean the same thing in the game as it does to me, for instance. Asking the assistant is a pointless exercise, given that he says 'for the fans!' every time for some reason.

I hate that everything takes so much time on FM09. So, I begin to ask the question, why am I playing FM09 at all? I mean, I don’t like the 3D, I hate the press conferences and I’m fed up of the team talks. That’s pretty much all of the new features for FM09!

Maybe I should just go back to FM08? :confused:

But there are two great things about FM09 – the new database and the match engine. If I could have both in FM08, I would be happy.

I’m left wondering what to do. I need my FM fix but I’m left really wound up by FM09.

Anyone else feeling this way about FM09? Any ideas how to enjoy it and not let it frustrate me again?

C.

P.S. Apologies if this sounds too much like one big rant.

[chopper99]

I must admit I have never fully understood the obsession which SI appears to have with getting rid of 'super tactics'. Why do they want to do it?

I honestly cannot see that it matters in the slightest if it is possible to produce a tactic which 'breaks the ME'. If somebody wants to play the game which he/she has bought in that way why shouldn't they? Nobody is compelled to use such a tactic any more than anyone is forced to save the game before each match and replay if the result doesn't suit. Some people do this, I am sure, and, again, why on earth shouldn't they if that's how they want to play? Nobody appears to think that the whole FM experience is ruined by this saving possibility so why should a 'super tactic' ruin the game either? 'Serious' FM players wouldn't use such a tactic anyway so where's the damage?

If someone could explain what is so terrible about somebody 'taking advantage' in this way I'd be very interested. As things stand, I just can't see why it's viewed as a problem at all.

I have to say that I totally agree with this post.

Some people want the game to be a constant battle between you and the AI, with them alays matching you or finding a way to keep things difficult, and some still want to find a way to beat the AI and play that way. Why is there not room for both?

The first group has won by the looks of things and there is little room for those who want to play the game in a way where they try and 'beat' the game. I see no benifit at all from eradicating the so called 'super tactics'. Don't get me wrong, I'm enjoying '09 now, and wouldn't exploit such tactics anyway, but I struggle to see why so much time is used trying to get rid of these 'weaknesses'.

And to Mike and Crouchy, I know exactly how you feel. It took me a long time to get into FM09. I've started to enjoy it a fair bit now, but don't play it anywhere near as much as I have in the past. And for me it's all down to time. Someone already hit the nail on the head, I think it was Crouchaldinho with his excellent posts, everything takes so long in FM09. For me that's the biggest issue. I've just finished my 4th season with Sunderland and I'm at about 23 June. It's already taken about 3 hours since I last played a match just to process through the summer and read and respond to certain news items. I know it will probably take most of a day to now get through the start of the new season and through the pre-season matches, and for that reason I'm struggling to go back to the game.

I think FM08 was on the edge for me, it played just quickly enough for me to get enjoyment out of it even though I only played a couple of hours a night. FM09 has tipped things just over that edge and my couple of hours a night now just isn't long enough to enjoy it. It takes so long to do anything that by the time I've sat down and played through a week of game time it's time to stop playing. So for that reason I just can't get any momentum going, which is waht would get me into the game. Now, for me anyway, the experience is disjointed.

[chopper99]

I also thought I would link this thread from Jimbokav:

http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php?t=116970

Another older player who seems to be struggling to get into this years version of the game.

[RT--]

With regards to the 'obsession... with getting rid of super-tactics':

I don't think Paul C and co. are thinking 'right, we must eliminate super tactics', they're just striving to create a more intelligent, realistic AI that adapts its tactics for certain matches and in-game situations. There's nothing wrong with that, surely?

If you have a single one-off tactic that constantly produces over-achievement across the whole season, then that to me suggests that something's wrong with either the AI, the match engine, or the tactical system itself. The abnormal success of super-tactics can highlight areas of weakness, but generally SI are just tuning those three things to create a more realistic experience.

As has been discussed elsewhere, the current tactics UI is pretty awful at allowing the user to set up basic frameworks and tweak them before/during games, but that's being worked on through FML beta testing and is almsot certainly going to mean an overhaul in FM10.

On the arrows:

The arrows were removed, not just because they gave the user a big advantage over the AI (who couldn't possibly come up with the range of options that the user could - the same argument for not including detailed set-piece editors), but more importantly because they were totally unrealistic. Footballers don't move in the way that they did with the arrows, with complete disregard to whatever was happening around them. Their removal was a step forward for the match engine, without doubt - what was lost in terms of lateral movement sounds like it will be re-introduced in some format (individual width sliders, cut inside options, etc) for FM10.

[jayahr]

I had these feelings with FM08 a lot, but with 09 it has gotten better.

Yet, yesterday night I played my game for the first time in two weeks and shut it down bored after 30 minutes.

Although being not young anymore, I'm sure that I'm not too old for playing FM - I keep thinking about it and possible challenges all the time. I think it's the game and the direction in which it has developed.

[stevie_G_32201]

i once thought this way about 09 myself. but ive recently come back to it and cant for the life of me think why i left in the first place!