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Just a simple thread about my thoughts about the AI. This relates to the old debate of introducing difficulty option levels in FM, which in itself probably wouldn’t work. This is bourn entirely from my own situation of being tactically inconsistent despite hours and hours of tweaking tactically and reading up on every possible opinion and idea tactically – and extensive studying of Cleans tactical Bible! So much so that I feel I am not getting enough time to play the game as I spend too much time reading the theory about it!
Anyway, In terms of a difficulty options, I have always been of the opinion that the game already has them in the respect that if you want an “easy” game, you simply select Man united or Barcelona and enjoy your success with quality players, if you want more of a challenge you Select some obscure non-league team and take them to glory. Fine, that’s how it should be. There shouldn’t be an arcade style option of turning the difficulty of the game down, and I don’t even think this is feasible with FM’s current engine anyway as it would completely upset the balance of the game and send the game into crazy mode.
My frustration, as already stated, stems from my lack of technical football knowledge and the amount of time required to research tactics/techniques without ant in game support telling me where I am going wrong or why I have just conceded 6 goals at home to Arsenal playing a defensive 5-2-2-1, or why after I have dominated a game and lead 3-0 at half time I lose 3-4. Form the posts I’ve seen over the months on here it’s clear I’m not the only one that feels the game “cheats” them somehow. This may well be down to a more realistic match engine, which is great, but the fact remains, the vast amount of the customer base are not real life football a mangers – armchair managers don’t have the benefit of years of tactical coach training and being able to read a game - especially a match we watch predominantly in highlight mode.
I don’t think the problem is that the game cheats, or that the game engine is indeed too hard, I feel the difficulty problem lies with two key factors:-
1)There is no tactical and technical help available that gives useful and detailed explanations as to where you are making mistakes. The assistant manager should have this feature, having him suggest a formation and some key instructions pre-match would be nice and then a post match report on the game with the reasons why you won/lost highlighted in simple and definitive terms.
2)You are playing against AI that is consistently TOO GOOD at reading the game and knows exactly what to do to counter your tactics.
Its that simple I believe, so you are always fighting an uphill battle from day one as there are no ( to my knowledge) varying levels of AI management competencies. I should expect a tough, tactical game when going up against Alex Ferguson for example, therefore need to be on my top technical form and be aware that he will punish any technical weaknesses in my team. Whereas going up against the likes of Kevin Keegan or Steve McLaren the AI should be tweaked so that it doesn’t necessarily react or counter my tactics because technically these managers are less likely to exploit my tactics, or even counter them if changed mid-game. If anything the AI should be more prone for these managers to make tactical gaffs.
As is the situation now , there does appear to be any deviation in quality of mangers and you are just as likely to get hammered tactically by the manager of a lower league team as you are a Premiership team, simply because the AI manager ALWAYS knows the “correct” tactic to use, and It’s only the quality of their players that is the variable on how successful these tactics are – or so it seems to me.
Sorry to bring to a head an old debate, but I feel this SI something that has been problematic since FM05, and with new FM08 match engine being so good it’s highlighted these weaknesses.
An Ass Man that gives you more info during and after the match e.g. "their pace is causing us problems, it might be a good idea to have the defence use a deeper line", "they can't handle our target man in the air, we should try more long balls". Is that the sort of thing you mean?
If it is, then it's a brilliant idea and we could have an option not to receive any info, in the same way we can have them take team talks or not.
Originally posted by Nomis07:
An Ass Man that gives you more info during and after the match e.g. "their pace is causing us problems, it might be a good idea to have the defence use a deeper line", "they can't handle our target man in the air, we should try more long balls". Is that the sort of thing you mean?
If it is, then it's a brilliant idea and we could have an option not to receive any info, in the same way we can have them take team talks or not.
Yea that's the idea for the assistant tactical input, it should be definitive and clear to understand.
It would of course need to be optional in the manager options whether to have it on or not so once you master the game more you can turn it off, if you just fancy a tougher game want to analyze the game yourself and see where you are going wrong (not everyone is as lazy as me!)
Its not just the tactical advise but also the varying levels of AI managers, this would reduce the importance of having the right tactics for each match. I believe this would balance the difficulty of the game much better.
Originally posted by Nomis07:
An Ass Man that gives you more info during and after the match e.g. "their pace is causing us problems, it might be a good idea to have the defence use a deeper line", "they can't handle our target man in the air, we should try more long balls". Is that the sort of thing you mean?
If it is, then it's a brilliant idea and we could have an option not to receive any info, in the same way we can have them take team talks or not.
this was my addition to the wishlist a few weeks ago, so an assistant actually assists rather than just being a coach.
No reason why this shouldn't be implemented. I like it a lot. Perhaps the Assman should assist in the creation of tactics as well?
I agree that SI needs to vary the AI managers as well. Make them have realistic differences. So a random League 2 manager won't be able to counter a tactic as successfully as SAF would, for instance.
I agree that SI needs to vary the AI managers as well. Make them have realistic differences. So a random League 2 manager won't be able to counter a tactic as successfully as SAF would, for instance.
Fully agree :thup:
And for Fm10 I'd like to have discussions with Assmann in natural language. @SI: Wouldn't that be a challenge for the developers?
Thinking about dificulty levels & AI 
Linear Mode
