Chat Is FMM too easy?

[SophiaFM]

What do you think? For me it depends on the players you have, but I think the AI does very little to make games harder, when you have a very good team for example. Its weird but big games at home are usually the easiest, and I’m usually winning by 3+ goals in them. I think everytime I’ve played Arsenal at home I’ve won by 3+ goals (Realistic tbf 😂) Obviously it’s fun to thrash a big team but with an improved AI I think a game where you’ve used your own tactics to defeat the opponent’s (improved tactics) can be even more satisfying

I think for FMM 2020 they need to improve the AI and the managers intelligence, and make it realistic. For example when you come up v certain managers, let’s say Mourinho, Simeone, the defensive ones it should be much tougher to score. They’ll park the bus and this will lead to you thinking of more attacking solutions. Because let’s face it, how am I beating a Jose Mourinho team 5-0 away 😂 not even the best managers could do that irl. When you come up against your Pep’s, Klopp’s, etc, they’ll be more open, this will give you 2 options of sticking to defending v their attacks or attacking the space they leave behind

Of course some will argue that a game doesn’t need to be realistic, and it needs to be fun etc, some may just play it as an escape or stress reliever. But with some of the threads I see on here, if you’re PSG and winning every game 9-0, with the help of the in game editor, it must get boring surely

I don’t use any in game editors or stuff like that if you’re wondering why I’m complaining it’s easy. It could also be that I’m just too good of a manager 😎

[Ashez]

5 hours ago, SophiaFM said:

It could also be that I’m just too good of a manager 😎

That's the key line and why FMM CAN be easy, we have countless threads from new members/players who find the game brutal, we're essentially alive as a site as 90% of people find us while looking for tactics/help/guides and so on. FMM is a casual game for casual players, unfortunately that does make certain things suck for hard-core fans and those that learn the game but we're a very tiny niche. 

That's why myself and many others have took it upon ourselves to incorporate our own challenges to increase the difficulty (a casual difficult also means we can go wild with challenge ideas without the game limiting us), I also personally think there is a very fine line between difficulty and cheapness in a game like FMM and history shows when SI attempt to increase the difficulty FMM becomes a frustrating mess. 

[SophiaFM]

2 hours ago, Ashez said:

That's the key line and why FMM CAN be easy, we have countless threads from new members/players who find the game brutal, we're essentially alive as a site as 90% of people find us while looking for tactics/help/guides and so on. FMM is a casual game for casual players, unfortunately that does make certain things suck for hard-core fans and those that learn the game but we're a very tiny niche. 

That's why myself and many others have took it upon ourselves to incorporate our own challenges to increase the difficulty (a casual difficult also means we can go wild with challenge ideas without the game limiting us), I also personally think there is a very fine line between difficulty and cheapness in a game like FMM and history shows when SI attempt to increase the difficulty FMM becomes a frustrating mess. 

If you’re a newbie yeah it can be hard, but if you’re an experienced player I think a better AI needs to be put in the game to make it more of a challenge, especially tactically because with the right tactics, you can win 75% of the games and you barely have to change. However there can be a risk if SI made the game harder, if the game is even harder with newbies playing it, it might scare them away 😆

[Ashez]

1 hour ago, SophiaFM said:

I think a better AI needs to be put in the game to make it more of a challenge

That would also become a time sink though and FMM's tagline is meant to be "Pick up and play". Don't get me wrong I understand what you're saying and I've been saying since day one the EME needs work but I am concerned about the time investment needed as is and tbh we haven't anywhere near the information for FMM to be a "strategy game" 

1 hour ago, SophiaFM said:

However there can be a risk if SI made the game harder

How'd you do this without the game being cheap though? Back in the old days the AI had infuriating super keepers, more recently we've had the late AI combats demoralizing the community, or the horrendous rubber banding and things like that, I'm just not sure how you fairly increase the difficulty, especially for experienced players who know what they're doing. I'd actually say we're to blame tbh, any time SI increase the difficulty or make a change this community is shit hot at working out how to counter it and effectively returning the difficulty to the "well it could be harder stage". Which SI have typically countered with infuriating BS. 

I'd settle for just more tactical depth and options over difficulty, like with the current engine only certain things really work well, which is limiting and makes everything feel samey, more options would allow for players more freedom. Then again our tactics forums are by far the most popular and for good reason, not everyone cares enough or understands enough to build tactics like other people. 

Removing exploits would also be a big deal as FMM has soooooooo many things that take advantage of the engine. The difficulty of tactic creation is purely time investment, lack of options/information and people not realising what to abuse, it's not by accident the top tactics are similar 😂

1 hour ago, SophiaFM said:

harder with newbies playing it, it might scare them away 

And that's 90% of the audience. Vibe has like 150 people on this morning, the Twitter community is like 20 people deep, yet on android alone the game shifted over 100k units. Most the fan base are casual or don't care enough which has always been FMM's proble, and it effects us as SI can ship any old shit knowing it'll sell, just look at how bad each release window is lol. 

From experience the best advice I can give to anyone when it comes to requesting any thing from SI is "be careful what you wish for". A perfect example is I wanted new training, which we finally got after a decade yet I hate how it's been implemented and the added reputation system has seriously dampened by enjoyment of 2019. It's a time sink with exploits which has ruined alot of the fun of the smaller leagues, for me anyway  

[SophiaFM]

Yeah regarding that last point, SI are way too complacent in terms of adding new stuff, as people will buy the game anyway. Because if you look at the competition, I mean who’s playing bs like Soccer Manager? 😂 Its similar in FIFA aswell, where people will buy it instead of PES and the money they make from Ultimate Team. There’s not much SI and EA they need to do, as everyone will buy their games anyway. It’s understandable from their POV but still frustrating as a fan of FM

[broodje kip]

I'm surely agree with this

The game like @Ashez said that lots of players complaint about the game beigng too hard even me myself when I just started playing this game (FMM2017) but then I started to feel itva bit too easy until once I had a career on FMM2018 where I won 500 games in a row and scoring 400 goals conceding only twice

While the SI and EA thing I think its pretty fair but look back comparing FIFA MOBILE 2019 and FMM2019 we can see that us FIFA Fan have made a campaign called #no$4bugs as it gets more p2w day by day but I haven't seen much discontent among FMM Community

[Schwantz34]

With the amount of people saying tactics don't work and they can't find anything to use, and struggle to come up with something themselves I'd say that shows it isn't too easy.

[samhardy]

5 minutes ago, Schwantz34 said:

With the amount of people saying tactics don't work and they can't find anything to use, and struggle to come up with something themselves I'd say that shows it isn't too easy.

That's because they don't try. If you've played the game for long enough to know that just lobbing players into the generic 4-4-2 formation isn't "trying to come up with something" then the game is too easy.

 Anyone who knows what they're doing could take any team in the Premier League and win it first season.

... And yes, the game is too easy. But for some people that's a good thing. A lot of the challenges here wouldn't be possible if you couldn't smash 100 goals a season in with a striker.

[SophiaFM]

12 minutes ago, Schwantz34 said:

With the amount of people saying tactics don't work and they can't find anything to use, and struggle to come up with something themselves I'd say that shows it isn't too easy.

It depends on the level of experience, but I assume people who struggle are newbies to the game. My advice to them is play a simple and balanced formation and tactics, look for your players strengths instead of shoehorning them into unusual formations and tactics, then experiment further if you've started winning and gained more experience

[Woody]

2 hours ago, Lord Danish said:

I'm surely agree with this

The game like @Ashez said that lots of players complaint about the game beigng too hard even me myself when I just started playing this game (FMM2017) but then I started to feel itva bit too easy until once I had a career on FMM2018 where I won 500 games in a row and scoring 400 goals conceding only twice

While the SI and EA thing I think its pretty fair but look back comparing FIFA MOBILE 2019 and FMM2019 we can see that us FIFA Fan have made a campaign called #no$4bugs as it gets more p2w day by day but I haven't seen much discontent among FMM Community

Only 400 goals over 500 games Danish? So thats 400 1-0 wins say but how did you win the other 100 games? 😂😂😂

[Schwantz34]

9 hours ago, samhardy said:

That's because they don't try. If you've played the game for long enough to know that just lobbing players into the generic 4-4-2 formation isn't "trying to come up with something" then the game is too easy.

 Anyone who knows what they're doing could take any team in the Premier League and win it first season.

... And yes, the game is too easy. But for some people that's a good thing. A lot of the challenges here wouldn't be possible if you couldn't smash 100 goals a season in with a striker.

Don't agree and that isn't what I said either. Plenty of players on here alone, who are experienced and played a lot have said they couldn't find systems that work. The new players that just don't want to try and get upset things aren't plug and play are a different conversation altogether. This game years ago used to be that easy you could choose any conference team, and get them promoted every season and into the Premiership without a single failed season. I'd argue that can't be done now with every lower league side, so the difficulty is getting better and more challenging. What isn't getting better is the amount of bugs and glitches every year, but that's a different topic. The game is never going to be overly challenging because it puts off the casual players and there's the full version for those that want the full experience and challenge. Could it be a little tougher? Yes it could and I'm sure it will be as new versions land each year. Finding a happy medium is far from easy and I think they are doing okay with the difficulty side. 

Edited August 28, 2019 by Schwantz34

[samhardy]

9 hours ago, Schwantz34 said:

Plenty of players on here alone, who are experienced and played a lot have said they couldn't find systems that work.

I maintain that anyone who “can’t find systems that work” simply isn’t trying hard enough or isn’t putting any effort in. Almost anything works on this game as you can see by some of the ridiculous tactics that work, 1 at the back systems for example. Look through the tactics index at some of the more wacky formations that excel when they really should have no right to. Personally this year I don’t think I’ve made a tactic that’s failed.

9 hours ago, Schwantz34 said:

This game years ago used to be that easy you could choose any conference team, and get them promoted every season and into the Premiership without a single failed season. I'd argue that can't be done now with every lower league side

Completely disagree. The game allows you to pick up players on frees, loans and from L2 at the start who are vastly better than the division they are playing in. I’d say it gets easier as the seasons go along as the AI get weaker and weaker as the game progresses. When viewing one of those bottom division to top careers on here I’m more surprised when someone fails to get promotion than I am when they go straight through the divisions consecutively.

As I said in my initial reply here the difficulty of the game doesn’t bother me, it arguably makes it more enjoyable with the challenges created every year. I just find it difficult to understand how anyone can find it difficult to the extent of saying they can’t get any tactics/systems to work.

[broodje kip]

17 hours ago, Woody said:

Only 400 goals over 500 games Danish? So thats 400 1-0 wins say but how did you win the other 100 games? 😂😂😂

Ahaha sorry for that typo as I was in the car that time but it was 4000 lol 😂😂

[Ian]

Yes the game is easy when played in a normal way without restrictions but from my limited experience of playing last year and this on EME I don’t see a way to make it more difficult without it becoming pure frustration for the user.

The altered player conditioning post winter update sums it up and even since then I’ve noticed that the chance conversion rate for strikers seems to have been hit a touch which I can only assume is a bid to lower the goals from strikers. I’ve been doing goalscoring challenges for last few months and so often you get games where your striker gets loads of chances but just can’t put them away. If you look through my recent careers you’ll often see games where I’ve had like say 18 shots but only 4 on target and won 4-0. Poor that is and from the outside you’d say my tactics are at fault but the results are fine and everything else I’ve tried has been similar with plenty of those types of results. 

If it is an attempt to lower striker goals then it looks like the aerial training glitch cannot be fixed as that would go a long way to lowering the striker goals and yes I’ve used the glitch myself before anyone pulls me up on it.

[Rhys Rockley]

I think it can be easy..would be good to see some in game sanctions put in ie point deductions transfer bans etc 

[SophiaFM]

9 hours ago, Rhys Rockley said:

I think it can be easy..would be good to see some in game sanctions put in ie point deductions transfer bans etc 

Yeah good point. Would be a good feature for FMM20 if Chelsea comes with a transfer ban for the first 2 windows, it’d force players to focus on their youth more, leading to a fun and challenging save

[AnonymousLietchensteiner]

16 hours ago, Rhys Rockley said:

I think it can be easy..would be good to see some in game sanctions put in ie point deductions transfer bans etc 

Point deductions only happen at the start of the season in FM19, for example Cheivo and Foggia. However I would like to see clubs get docked points for administration or transfer ban for breaching rules etc

[Ashez]

7 hours ago, SophiaFM said:

Yeah good point. Would be a good feature for FMM20 if Chelsea comes with a transfer ban for the first 2 windows, it’d force players to focus on their youth more, leading to a fun and challenging save

Or would it make players just ignore Chelsea as a playable option? Transfers are FMM's main strength imo. 

[Scratch]

10 hours ago, SophiaFM said:

Yeah good point. Would be a good feature for FMM20 if Chelsea comes with a transfer ban for the first 2 windows, it’d force players to focus on their youth more, leading to a fun and challenging save

I can't see them doing that to be honest for the following reasons: a) FMM is generally cut-down / simplified, so they generally don't put extra stuff like this in and b) the main target audience for FMM is the casual user and as @Ashez points out this could ruin Chelsea as an option for some people.

It would be cool as one of the built in challenges you can play (for any club). And it would make a good challenge here on Vibe (see how many EPL points you can get with Chelsea without making any signings that season).

In general though, I just moved from the pre-winter version to the latest version and OMG it is so much harder. I had my worst ever start to a 1KC: 2 goals, yes, that's right *2* goals in the first season. I normally get somewhere between 25 and 50 depending on the age of the striker. This one is young, but spent the first season too intimidated to improve much and it was pretty much a right off... I'm sure I'll get better at this version, but I'm finding it way harder than the pre-winter update versions. 

[SophiaFM]

8 hours ago, Ashez said:

Or would it make players just ignore Chelsea as a playable option? Transfers are FMM's main strength imo. 

But it adds realism, as Chelsea literally do have a transfer ban. Plus they’d be an exciting save with all the youth/young players they’ve currently got. With a transfer ban it gives you more time to use them and develop them 

[Ashez]

2 hours ago, SophiaFM said:

But it adds realism, as Chelsea literally do have a transfer ban. Plus they’d be an exciting save with all the youth/young players they’ve currently got. With a transfer ban it gives you more time to use them and develop them 

How hard would it be to select Chelsea and simply not sign anyone season one? Why'd you need a hard coded restriction to stop you signing someone? Yeah it's realistic but it's limiting and an option easily implemented by the player. 

[MikeF]

It can be tricky but it’s meant to be less of a challenge than the desktop version etc. You should be able to pick this up and play a few matches on the tube or whenever you have 20 mins spare. That’s where this game fits in the bigger picture of FM products. Plus just down to resources and phone processing power there’s only so many features they can include.

Too easy and you get bored, too hard and people don’t play.

Challenges are key to keeping it interesting though for sure. 

 

It also gets easier when we have the benefit of hindsight. After you’ve played a couple of saves you learn what systems work, who the good wonderkids are and who the bargains are. We play this game for a year remember. It gets easier with time but that’s a lot of time.

By the time you’re beating all other teams 5-0 you have a squad of world class players. The only compatible thing to that in real life is City/Liverpool who funnily enough have squads full of world class players and smash teams 5-0 week in week out!

Im not saying it’s realistic but if you could reload the premiership back in 2014 you’d be able to get a team of world class players for a fraction if the cost today.

Edited September 5, 2019 by MikeF

[MikeF]

4 hours ago, Ashez said:

How hard would it be to select Chelsea and simply not sign anyone season one? Why'd you need a hard coded restriction to stop you signing someone? Yeah it's realistic but it's limiting and an option easily implemented by the player. 

I always like to go in without transfers in the first window selected anyway for my first save. It’s all been done in the window in real life. 

[Roman.F2P]

On 27/08/2019 at 05:21, SophiaFM said:

If you’re a newbie yeah it can be hard, but if you’re an experienced player I think a better AI needs to be put in the game to make it more of a challenge, especially tactically because with the right tactics, you can win 75% of the games and you barely have to change. However there can be a risk if SI made the game harder, if the game is even harder with newbies playing it, it might scare them away 😆

That being said Liv, MC, Barcelona and a few more teams in Europe won over 75% of theirs games last year 

[AnonymousLietchensteiner]

10 hours ago, SophiaFM said:

But it adds realism, as Chelsea literally do have a transfer ban. Plus they’d be an exciting save with all the youth/young players they’ve currently got. With a transfer ban it gives you more time to use them and develop them 

I don’t really like the ‘realism’ bit, FMM is meant to be casual. Sure transfer ban would fit FM, but in FMM this kind of detail would make it more irritating

[Meestercat]

Personally speaking I’ve found this version to be the most challenging of the most recent years.  I wouldn’t say it’s impossibly hard, but I’ve definitely had to work for success in my saves, as opposed to ‘buying an amazing IF and watch him rack up a ridiculous goal tally’ like a certain earlier version.

[Ashez]

I was just listening to a podcast which discussed the breaking of strategy games in where you'll often accidentally (or deliberately) break the games if you have an understanding of the systems in place. This issue isn't the fact you know how to break the game as such but more about how not to use that information in the future as it's impossible to unlearn something you know, unless you have the self restraint to ignore said information. Even more so in a competitive environment like Vibe. 

This is a problem I've fell into a few times with FMM, back on the PSP I had a tactic which broke the game completely, as I did on the mobile game from 2013 until I stopped using the OME, and that mobile tactic was especially hard to break away from as absolutely nothing compared to it. 

The EME was a tad harder to break but I could name multiple exploits which make the engine a joke and this is without looking for them especially hard (back in the day I did enjoy breaking the game, not so much anymore after destroying 2016 & 17 for myself by making some shocking discoveries). However we're a tight nit community so even if I didn't discover exploits myself from play I'll likely know of them from discussions, articles or whatever else, the information is readily available. 

So how do you then play the game without using said information? Since the role system come into play I've had my own tactical principles and go to ideas as the base which have always served me well, even still but whenever I'm building a tactic I'm not doing it blind as I am using the knowledge I've picked up even if unintentionally. 

Exploits like the heading bug are easy to ignore as it's something you have to go out of your way to do but with general things which you need to think about like the puzzle of tactic building how do you not use information you know? Sure you can build specific tactics which are typically awkward like a flat 442 but the fact remains that they just won't compare. 

I've never been keen on the role system and maybe that's partly to blame via its limitations, we have less to play with so most the time the options select themselves and with knowledge that's hard to ignore its easy to fall into the trap. Then you have the team instructions with a few which are seen as starting instructions with the rest seen as situational in match, this imbalance is realistic but it's sending us down the same path. 

With limited options and knowledge that's very useable and effective it's not surprising as a community we can produce tactic after tactic, help article after help article and accidentally make the game easier for everyone. Take a look at the Black Pearl for example, there are reasons why alot of tactics since that was revealed look similar, even if unintentional 99% of people here know that tactic and know it's highly effective. 

Yet how do SI counter this? We've seen them try with frustrating and game destroying results but any time the difficulty has naturally increased so for example from the OME to the EME (purely because it was new, the EME isn't harder than the OME as RNG is a bitch) we broke the EME wide open in months if not weeks. All it takes is one discovery accidentally or not and we have the knowledge to take off from to make the game even easier for ourselves. 

When @Foxyand myself went about building the Tiki-Taka tactic we went into the process with knowledge of the game and how to achieve what we wanted, it was a time consuming process to get exactly what we wanted but we had the information available to use as a base, which saved alot of time. Then you have the Gegen which was basically made within a hour as we used the information learnt from making the first which made making the second laughably easy and in my personal opinion the Gegen is an excellent tactic. We learnt and adapted what we knew to essentially break the game, and I dunno about Foxy but I've personally used alot of what I learnt then in every tactic since. 

 

[Jack]

For experienced Football Manager players the game isn’t very difficult. This is the case for any game that’s been around for years - the skill level and meta’s develop over time. I’ve never understood the argument that the game is “too easy” - I’ve never seen someone playing for the first time describe it as easy. It’s always people who have played FM for years. Newsflash: if you do something for years you’re very likely going to become better at it.

There are definitely ways the game could be developed differently to provide more of an overall challenge though. I’ve advocated for years that the AI level should be increased via development of AI manager personalities. The game shouldn’t be made more difficult for us in terms of our own team’s performance/condition/ability being nerfed, instead we should be challenged by particular managers in particular situations. That way there’s development of a balance between keeping the game simple/fun, as FM should be IMO, and the opportunity to add more ‘authenticity’ - thus creating scenarios where you really have to think how you’d overcome them.

[Gnight]

The game is too easy. I play casually and got Ipswich Town with Mbappe Zaniolo and my starting 11 filled the world top 20. Ipswich Town are league 1. I managed this in 5 and a half seasons. Without trying.  This is not only due to my team but the AI being dreadful. Man city have 29 year old morelos from rangers up front. Its outrageous. I resigned and took over just to see their team. They had 300 million plus spare. Spend it!!!!

Edited May 21, 2020 by Gnight
Additions needed