retired_e_fores

I think I agree with everything said thus far in this thread. There are inconsistancies for which we have no answers from save game to save game even though a player may be using exactly the same approach each time. Obviously there should be differences - the game woud be boring and predictable otherwise - but your West Ham example shows a lot IMO.

retired_rayrhi

And you know what, Moggy, the fact that there is this randomness is what makes the game so beautiful and exciting. My West Ham example shows how unpredictable the game is, but also it shows just how much we DON'T know. If you ask the three managers who got relegated this season IRL from rhe Premiership, they could all tell you why. There NEEDS to be a distinction between tactics and 'other' variables. At the minute, I am not able to tell whether I have a successful formation since there is too much inconsistency from team to team and season to season. Remember, I always use the same formation and theory.

retired_litlwhich

I have to agree with arteta, the game definately seems to be more about luck than anything else. I've tried wwfan's latest tactics set and, again, I'm getting VERY inconsistent results regardless of what tactic I choose. This is based on using the tactics for a season and a half. The only thing that IS consistent is my Cordoba team conceding a goal in the first 10 mins 80% of all my matches.

I've been thinking the last few versions of FM have tended more towards luck and inconsistency a lot more as they've gone on. FM 07 has been my least played by far, and each year I become less interested. I think it's due to a combination of the game being too complicated now and needing too much time, the inconsistency and a common theory that the AI does indeed cheat at times.

I'm not 16 years old anymore, I have a partner and a full time job. I don't want to have to come home from work, put FM on and mess with sliders for two hours before I even click continue once.

retired_janellewood86

Without wishing to put words in arteta's mouth, DagsJT1, he isn't saying the game is all about luck - he's saying that because we don't know why we succeed/fail, the only thing we can put it down to is things we can't quite grasp. If you like, "luck" is when we get something right or wrong unintentionally.

He isn't saying that the game is based on luck and you can do everything right and still lose loads of games (of course, there'll always be one or two). The thing is, we don't know if we've done everything right or not, and that's what is so infuriating. It's not that the AI cheats or that tactics are inconsistent, it's that the changes we need to make aren't obvious until it's far too late (if they ever reveal themselves at all).

Again, if we had an inkling as to what we could change to make things better, those indescribable elements would seem so much clearer, and we wouldn't be getting so many people claiming the AI cheats, that it's impossible to be consistent and that it take years to develop a decent set of tactics.

retired_ladylimdiddy

I agree we need to know what kind of things the game takes into account. Is ranking a big thing? Is it more of a morale issue? I mean we just don't know.

Our tactics might be ok and it may be something else thats causing inconsistency. However I still feel the tactics are too dramatic the effects they can have. AI turn games around too many times.

retired_rayrhi

Millie. You hit the nail on the 'ead mate. You have not put words in my mouth. Dags, if you read closely, you will notice that I am praising the game to a certain extent. Millie's definition of 'luck' is absolutely correct though. We've all gone away to a top team at some point (maybe you haven't?) and murdered them, only to lose 1-0 to Wigan at home the next. Instead of celebrating the victory away to Chelsea, I find myself more puzzled than anything else as to why I have won. Surely this is not a good thing...?

retired_FaultyFate

Just a few words about tactical consistency. If you go to "Teamtalk Feedback" screen there is one row saying something like "Players have developed strong understanding what we want from them" (I am not at home, so cannot give the exact phrase). But I have just started 4th season and have not tweaked a lot of things for a while. And actually I can see that no matter if I win or loose, the team plays much more consistent then it did in seasons 1-2 (players doing what my instructions said, less stupid mistakes, etc.). Just wondering how this row would look like in the begining of the season 1 or if you tweak tactic dramatically from one match to another (I am not talking about tweaking during one match, as it is might be different). If you see something like "Players are confused" or similar, it would be hard to expect that your team will win every game even if you precisely follow direction suggested by someone who understands AI brilliantly.

And yes, I agree the game is not easy, it has a lot of randomness, and sometimes I feel frustration because I think I have done everything right and still lost. But this is the beauty of the game of football - you may be very lucky to win against monsters one and be beaten by weakest team in the world just because it happened to be the day of their life. Figure out what you want from your team step by step and just keep going!

P.S. Sorry for English.

retired_litlwhich

Hmm I've probably used the word luck wrongly there, I agree with that arteta said though. It's the whole randomness of it (and the lack of knowing what's going on) that gets me. It probably feels like luck to me, but you're right in the sense that if I don't see an explanation of why the result went the way it did, then how am I to know where I went right or wrong?

hdsegal

Exactly what I have been dying for, Arteta. How SI can keep us out in the dark is beyond me. Just flipping through the manual that comes with the game, and some of the explanations for the sliders are terribly written and very inconclusive. This could be corrected perhaps if someone from SI who knows the game would just spend a couple hours on these forums and answer certain questions we have.

retired_noor81

I have to agree with arteta as well. Well said, all of it.

The more I think about it, and the more I sit down with the game and take a good look at what goes on, pretty much forcing myself not to hit 'continue' often and mechanically... the less I know about the game and the more I wonder why the heck is there so little feedback all around.

And arteta's point is well reflected in real life as well. Take Barcelona and Getafe for the Spanish Cup semis not too long ago.

First leg: Barcelona 5-2. Basically ran over Getafe, though showed some flaky moments and conceded two.
Second leg: Getafe 4-0. Barcelona fielded a 'B' team of sorts, against a side that had to do or die.

It's pretty clear there to see what happened. Barcelona, despite being the much superior team line by line, showed some flakiness at the back on the first leg, and beat Getafe so harshly they left them with no option but to come at them with tooth and nail for the second leg if they wanted to stay alive. Which they did. If to this, we add Barcelona fielding a second-rate side for the second leg, then it's no surprise why Getafe went through and Barcelona didn't. It's easy to see.

Now translate that scenario to real life and.... what?

- For the first leg, whether I'm managing Barcelona or Getafe, I have no way of knowing why the game ended up 5-2. Was it Barcelona's superior tactics, superior players or was it just their night? Likewise, were Getafe's players really so out of their league, was their tactical approach wrong or was it not their night?

In FM, I have no idea what happened. I can see the score, I can see the circles dancing around the screen, but there's only so much I can get out of all that. Sure, a priori, Barcelona beating Getafe 5-2 at Camp Nou is a fairly unsurprising result. But...

- For the second leg, Getafe beats Barcelona 4-0 and... what? Why did that happen? Am I sure it was because Barcelona fielded a more average side on FM? No. Am I sure the tactical approach was incorrect? No, because probably I would've played the same way as I did for the first leg were I managing Barcelona (would you change a tactic that just netted you a 5-2? Neither would I). Was it player morale all around? Despite being a more average side, I look at the squad I sent out and their morale ranges from good to superb. Was it Getafe's morale? Can't be, because they were just beaten 5-2 (and probably beaten on the weekend as well), and their morale was crap.

Even if I can't point to just one thing and make it responsible for the overall result in real life I can say with some certainty that it was a combination of (weaker team forced to score lots to reach a final) + (average side fielded by the superior team when visiting). And that's it. I know what happened.

That situation in FM? I have no way of pinpointing what happened. I don't know why, as Barcelona, I can beat Getafe at home 5-2 and lose 4-0 next week with the same tactic. As Getafe, I don't know why we lost 5-2 first, and since I probably had not changed the tactic dramatically, end up winning 4-0 the next week. Barcelona's morale was great, leading the league and after winning 5-2. Getafe's was not so great, losing 5-2 and doing their best since they're a limited team. And so on.

There needs to be a clear way of the game offering feedback and pinpointing, with certainty, maybe not all reasons, but at least one or two reasons why things happen in game they way they did. And no, I don't think a press blurb after the first game like "... the game was decided by the superior finishing of the Barcelona strikers" is doing enough. If this feedback has to come in the shape of an improved assistant manager that tells you why things went wrong and why things went right, then so be it.

But we can't be in the dark anymore. It's no fun. In real life, after all that, Rijkaard knows he can't be so confident and trust so much in his 'B' team. Schuster knows that sometimes his team can be beaten soundly, but they got the right stuff to come back if spurred properly.

In FM, managing Barcelona or Getafe, what have I learned after all that? Nothing. Because I don't know exactly what went right and what went wrong.