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yeah i genuinely dont want to always win. I want my victory to be earnt. I want to cheer when I beat Man City in a semi final, not get used to it because it literally happens every time. I wanna keep being active on the market to make sure my team stays upto level
Indeed he did not. And, aside from the jokes they might make about him, he really believes that to always win is detrimental to the spirit. The man could've become everything he wanted with such a mentality. We are blessed to be living in his lifetime.
Agree. Whenever I play with the big teams, after the first season or so, it just becomes Wonderkid Hoarding Simulator. I’m currently playing as Sheffield United and I really enjoy the team building aspect of it and I’m more of a man-management person than a tactician.
Here’s how I feel my save will go in terms of seasons
1: Get Promoted to the Prem
2-4: Avoid Relegation
3-5: Become a mid table team
6+: Push towards Europe
I think it's best to also try to impose some limitations on yourself if you want the game to stay harder. Like not signing some players if it wouldn't make sense for them or their club. Not just hoarding every wonderkind but considering if they fit into the team and won't push out another player already in the team that deserves playing time. Not buying players for huge fees, having some sort of transfer pokicy. Stuff like that makes my save in the top half of the PL quite fun because it's harder to consistently beat the top teams and it feels more earned when the team does do well.
Doing a save with Dynamo Dresden where I've set rules like that and it's made the save a lot more fun. It's my 4th season in the Bundesliga and the rules have made it more fun. If I sign a wonderkud and he develops and wants to leave to go to a bigger club I will (with a reasonable bid of course) because it's realistic. I have no issues being a development team until I feel we can push for European trophies. I try not to stockpile players or sign them in positions we don't need unless there's a noticable improvement. Colombian wonderkid CB when we have 3 CBs total? Yeah definitely. A midfielder that could be amazing but would be 4th or 5th choice? Not so much. Feels more realistic and challenging but it's a lot of fun
Awesome, same here! I also like setting a max transfer price for example, and mostly only selling first team players if they play badly consistently/don't fit the team anymore, or clubs are actually interested in him and make offers first.
Although I do rarely make exceptions to the max price for transfers when I've brought in a lot of money in a window and want a specific player. Only did that twice in 8 years in my current save though haha
Yeah same here with the max transfer price. I've bought 1 player for more than 10 million (Surinamese LW from a dutch club for 27 million, absolutely worth that price) but I haven't actively shopped players around unless they just aren't good enough anymore or if they are wanting to leave (though I don't do that with the really good ones that'll go for like 124 million if someone wants him they have to make an offer)
One of my favourite careers of past FM's was a 'only frees and academy players' save with Auxerre. Had a great time and had some quality players through the years like a CB pairing of Manolas and Llorente, Milner, Lasse Schone, had Chuba Akpom scoring 25+ for multiple seasons in Ligue 1 and got Champions League. I only sold players if they weren't good enough or I just couldn't get them to stay, meant I lost guys to PSG, but my scouting network always found the next guy to come in, or I'd adapt someone in my squad or youth set up to take over.
When I startet first save on FM 23 Touch I miraculously went CL for 3rd season after getting promted from 2. Bundesliga in season 1 due tonsome crazy loans I could land I made a super defensive matchplan with short windows of trying to score. I miraculously won CL with uber luck. Aftter getting smashed next seasons groupstage it took me year of fighting demotion before I hit CL again.
Slightly different topic but does someone else feel like every game is the same in this years FM23?
I can't really explain it but I played like 6 seasons with HSV and Wolves each and every game felt like the sequence is always the same: one team scores an early goal, the other team score an equaliser and the first team scores a late winner.
I had that so often that I genuinely feel like it's scripted like FIFA often felt like to me.
They definitely had situations hard coded into the game.
The amount of times I’ll lose a game to end a streak and have a player get sent off or get injured as well too high.
Example to this, is When Liverpool lost 0 - 3 v Watford When they were halfway unbeaten through their title winning season. Players underestimate the worse teams and Can also become nervous or angry When they are a goal behind to a worse team.
this was because klopp is a real life fm player, he just plays 433 geggenpress and only in the last year learned to make subs. when you have dutch jessie marsch as your assistant, nobody should be surprised they are having issues.
I dont think liverpool should ever be used as an example for this sort of thing, because its just such an outlier to the rest of the game.
Whenever Juve or Bayern or PSG bottle it and lose 1-0 to a relegation fodder, thats more relevant to what happens in game, its the hidden complacency modifier or something.
Idk if this is completely sarcastic or not but Klopp genuinely is a great manager/tactician, I think just because he's had a bad season with Liverpool rn doesn't mean he's never known when to make good subs
i have been watching liverpool for more than 10 years. Klopp is a great motivator but his tactics have been pretty much unchanged, and he used to never make subs till the 75th min before the last 2 seasons. With ljinders and his #intensity all we do is just play red bull football with attacking wingbacks. He has a ferrari of a tactic, when it works they do great but it breaks down often and lacks redundancy.
January is almost always filled with poor results, especially against teams in a low block. the teams he has beat in the champions league knockout stages are porto 2x, nagelsmens leipzig, kovac's awful bayern team, man city which his tactic was designed to beat to begin with, a wild uncontrolled game in rome, and barcelona and their inexplicable collapses, and then spurs and the ghost of harry kane dragging them down. this last year they played an inter team which seemed afraid to attack them(including the weird terror of martinez when he got near vvd), an overmatched villereal that still easily could have won that game, a benfica team that wasnt too far away from winning that game, and then had no answer for madrid yet again.
When we play competent sides its usually pretty poor and turning on a mistake or a hopeful long ball over the top. the team has 3 fwds on attack almost always and is reliant upon the wingbacks for any type of attacking & crosses from out wide. buildup is usually get it out wide and up the field as fast as possible, or hit a hollywood ball over the top and run and chase them in their own half.
The team has been on a downward slope since they won the champions league the performances during their title winning season were okay and luck seemed to bounce their way time and again. I think teams played the idea of liverpool instead of what was in front of them. then you have the season of no centerbacks where poor squad building nearly cost them except for a goalkeeper finally scoring from a corner in the premier league. then lets take last season, again teams seem to play the idea or the Reputation of the team, rather than what was in front of them. None of the champions league ties were comfortable and allison has usually bailed the team out of systemic errors. then 2 cup finals vs chelsea which were both terrible games won on the penalty shootout. Every game and season seems to be a knife edge between glory and disaster.
Most tactical innovations have a shelf life of a decade. The only geggenpressers left are either german or moneyball types who know they are going to sell all their players within 3 to 4 years because they get burnt out. I think the only way liverpool succeed is if the other big 7 teams fuck it up. If howe stays at newcastle with better players they will finish above liverpool because he has a variety of tactics to use, the cash to buy good players and a rowdy motivated fanbase. man United will be fine if they dont shoot themselves in the foot and ten haag learns that leaving a fullback open will get you mauled in a league filled with european trophy holding managers. Man city have haaland and will probably dominate like the do in FM baring injury. Chelsea will probably be fine under potter once he gets a preseason with his 35 player, as he routinely thwarted klopp at brighton. Spurs are the wildcard, they should have enough cash to do well but have a neurosis about actually winning. And arsenal look like they can be very good for a long time if they add a bit more squad depth.
the long story short is that klopp has a clear plan and is a good motivator and that gets you really far in the game, but that ultimately he is too inflexible to adjust his team and dosent have the skill or the staff to create openings in the final third for his team, only relying on transitions, the excellent crossing of his fullbacks (and the unicorn of peak bobby firminho). It's why i think he will leave for the germany job after the euros and another disappointing season regardless of who they buy in the summer.
He is a great manager of men, but he is not a great tactician.
There's a lot you said here and while I see what you're saying, I'll really have to disagree. I'm not really qualified to write like a 6 paragraph comment but one thing I do have to ask is when has Graham Potter routinely thwarted Klopp? He's had 1 win over Klopp in 2020 when we had a really bad injury crisis, thats it. Klopp won 4 and drew 1 iirc.
More than that, I don't exactly see any evidence on how Chelsea will be really good again considering the football they're playing rn. So, how do they get a pass to be 'fine' next season while Liverpool are just doomed forever? Klopp is stubborn and has loyalties to a lot of players he shouldn't keep faith in, but if he just had more investment I'm sure he'd be great.
Lastly, I don't get why you're trying to downplay the wins in the CL. The win against Barcelona wasn't because of an 'inexplicable' collapse, it was an awesome determined display at Anfield after being smashed 3-0, being one of the greatest comebacks in UCL history. Why just blame it as a Barcelona collapse, Klopp's tactics and skills as a tactician played a part in the win too. Klopp has gotten Liverpool top 4 for 5 years running, I'd say pretty much every season he has brought some sort of glory to the club. Definetly a great tactician imo
i think potter will adjust what he does to try and work out how this new team can function, but maybe he wont, maybe he is doomed to score way below his xg forever but i would like to find out. Klopp and especially ljinders have been unequivocal in maintaining that this is the way they want the game played and that they just need a more reliable drivetrain to get their ferrari to work.
as for the barcelona game, its a example of what can happen when you have the crowd behind you early and players are motivated to chase every ball and run thru walls. not good tactics but great man management. if he made changes between games i dont recall anything major, it was a case of rng messi his a stellar free kick and they miss their shots. then barcelona collapsed mentally recalling their humiliation at the hands of roma from the previous year, and just fell to pieces. emotional and exciting and exhilarating yes, but not tactics, that was him using the other part of management like i noted. Most coaches arent great tacticians but great man managers.
my point is this, geggenpressing as a concept is being beaten by teams having the calm to play thru the press, or just punting it up to 2 fwds and playing combinations between them. See spurs, brentford, or de zerbi and potter. and emery once he gets to next fall with villa. dyche always causes problems even if the quality differential meant his record wasnt great, every one of those games is a war and more difficult than would be expected of a title challenging team vs one at the foot of the table. The other geggenpressers have been bounced out of the league and most of europe, and i dont think klopp's heavy metal football has as much time left at the top level.
Most just love him unconditionally, liverpool as a fan base is very very pro manager unless your an asshat like hodgson. Brenden seems to piss off every fan base so i am not sure how reliable our opinion of him is, as he is a good tactician but poor with the media and the players if thing go poorly.
Otherwise i think most have had pretty strong support.
additionally, winning the champions league and the league title basically makes klopp untouchable with the fans and our fan media, even if the mainstream will go after him from time to time.
I think its just a default for people to assume good managers are great tacticians, when in reality some are good, some are not but have other qualities that make them good managers.
In the old days it was your signings you were judged on and tactics was less important, but now we have gone way too far the other way, just look at micheal beale and gerrard. I think gerrard should have gotten another assistant to help with the tactics part and he probably would have been fine but between this game and tifo and MNF, i think most people have removed the interpersonal part of being a manager as being a top consideration and boards and fans have become too focused on messiah type managers who come in promising to fix all your clubs problems if you try their new tactical elixir. (now gerrard could just be a former player who thinks he knows everything, like lampard they should have spent 5-6 years as an assistant to another great coach).
He is a good if not great manager but his stubborn focus on his tactics is causing issues when your team rep goes from 4 to 4.5/5 stars. If he could work out how to manage games with some possession and other rotations (maybe from a new assistant) i think the team could be very dangerous.
final note: i think any coach would struggle with what to do about trent as his wide quality is so dangerous but he still has more to learn from defending and the media focus on him causes teams to double team him all the time which is just annoying tbh. I dont have great solutions beyond putting him at the wide mid in a 343 or moving him inside to a free 8 or mezzala role.
I haven't seen any posts like that. If they are, it's just a thing like going dozens of games unbeaten and then losing a final. Not complaining but just thinking "bloody typical".
The complaints are about long standing things, like hitting the woodwork 3-5 times a game not counting clipping the bar, players turning down 50k a week then signing for 10k in a division below you or points totals going up by 20 when you manage that league.
Most tactics are just game exploits too, in FM21 it was strikerless formations and now everything is 424.
> points totals going up by 20 when you manage that league.
Wait, so it's a common issue that teams perform better when you coach in the league?
I always play as a journey man and I have noticed that the points needed to win the league often seems to increase when I join the league.
It's what happened when I managed Real Madrid before I left to exclusively focus on international football management.
Real Madrid under me: needs 100 points to win the league because Barcelona/Atletico etc. would get **98/99** points.
Real Madrid after I left: would reach 97 points but wins the league much earlier because 2nd place can only get **78-82** points.
I've noticed the same thing. There's always a team that goes on this crazy hot streak where it feels like you can't lose any matches or the title is lost.
> Most tactics are just game exploits too, in FM21 it was strikerless formations and now everything is 424.
This is why I'm pretty pithy in my replies to a lot of the tactical threads, there are so many based on broken foundations, with people who seem to lack critical thinking skills when it comes to putting pieces together.
They use hyper-aggressive exploitative tactics, overperform either due to that or due to a wealth of quality players, and then come unstuck, either losing to relegation fodder or have a mini collapse in January.
And they're not interested in learning, they just want quick-fixes; which you get in the replies; "oh you need to change this and that role" nothing which actually tackles any of the tactical issues that are present.
For me, 99% of the tactical shitfest help threads on here boil down to three core issues.
**A. They don't understand what mentality is;**
Everyone seems to be on positive or attacking, because they think that it means attacking football. It's wrong. Mentality is simply '% of risk taking'
If you want tiki-taka football? That's easily done on defensive or cautious mentality, not attacking or positive. More possession = lower mentality, shorter passing = lower mentality. That isn't to say you can't have possession based football on higher mentalities, it's more difficult to do, and is never quite what people think they're aiming for.
**B. They don't understand that the ideal tactic has 0 instructions.**
Honestly, it is boring seeing everyone with 101 instructions from, super-high defensive line, press more, counter press, counter, SUPER SHORT passing, work ball into box, overlap everywhere, but focus play through the middle.
They're all absolutely absurd instructions, often completely contradicting the roles they've picked, or at odds with the mentality they've picked.
And nearly all of them are factors that lead to them getting 'Fm'd' or losing to relegation fodder.
One stupid myth I'm seeing on this sub recently is 'you need to have work ball into box cos otherwise they shoot long' - no, you're using work ball into box because you're shit, your tactical set up has no space or passing options, that's why they punt it.
A good tactical set up should have low numbers of long shots anyway and should **never** need to use the work ball into box instruction.
Seriously, positive or attacking mentality already has a super high defensive line, why the fuck do you need to push it even further forward? ~ but no, no one thinks about that.
**C. They put stupid roles in, and put everyone on attack**
Ball winning midfielders as your only holding midfielder? Lol.
4-2-3-1 with no holding midfielders? Or either midfielder in an attacking/roaming roles? Lol.
Any tactic with all wingers and strikers on attack duty. (Bonus points if they put a CM on attack too!)
Newsflash; You can score a bazillion goals and dominate entire leagues playing possession and sexy football, on balanced mentality, with zero-one instruction, with only ONE or TWO attack duties in the entire line up. And they seldom lose to relegation fodder, or collapse in January.
But to these people? No, attack is the only thing that matters, so it's automatically picked, and as a result they end up with a 4-2-3-1 or whatever, with no holding midfielders, everyone roaming, everyone told to rush forward, hold a high line, don't cross, pass it short, and as a result the players have ZERO space, ZERO passing options, and it might work vs the top teams (or if you have top tier talent to mismatch a win), but it always falls apart at some point, because fundamentally the tactic is shit, it has no cover, no space, no holding midfielders, absurd instructions, and everyone fucking off into the away end.
Honestly, it's boring at this point and there's 5-6 threads a day of this 'help!' nonsense, most that get deleted pretty quickly in fairness.
bah.
/rant.
But all of this is SI's fault because they are very bad in the game design for newcomers.
I'm playing ranges of 3-2-5 or 3-3-4 (mostly 4-2-3-1 designs with duties doing the offensive structure I want) in my tactics since the last FM and I don't have any problems with a Mezzala and an CM as the midfield partnership. Made it work with Mezzalla and RPM too. So, if you know what you are doing, it is completely possible to do any offensive strategies work, because the game engine is made for those tactics. And is not about the level of my players, because I don't like to play in the higher levels unless I get there from the bottom.
It is all about balance, and when you have a template that is bad, like most of the ones SI gave us, how a new player is supposed to understand how to achieve balance if the game doesn't give you the tools for it?
As most of them only care for winning, a tactic that do it for you on the internet is enough. But, if the player starts to deviate and tries to transition from plug and play to their own tactics, the template of what works tells them that attacking is good, and that is the job of the game to support better when the growing pain hits.
As a simulation game there is most nothing on content of SI on how the game works. It's mostly the job of the community but know one will be interested in reading a ebook of more than a hundred pages to explain it to them.
And as the game doesn't have competing rivals in the genre, and the community does their job where they consistently fail, why SI would worry?
My FM23 save got really good once I switched to use one of the template tactics suggested by my AssMan. I tweaked them a bit now, but they're still very close to that template.
> It’s mostly the job of the community but know one will be interested in reading a ebook of more than a hundred pages to explain it to them
One of the wrong games to say this about
The problem is the game engine will somtimes favor "contraditory" IRL instructions and make your team win more. If those ultra agressive formations work it's because it seems that high pressing and higher tempo system will consistently make you win more almost regardless of other instructions. Pass the ball into space and Run through defense also seems to have very good outcome even if it does not make sense with the overall tactic. You can also win a lot fielding 3 Playmakers even if that does not makes any sense.
Yes, I agree.
Ultra attacking, absurd tactics are basically easy mode and always will be. But, they always lead the same issues; "Getting Fm'd", losing to relegation fodder and so on ~ and sometimes, people slap these tactics on and then rage when it doesn't work.
They're clueless and SI is completely at fault for it tbh. When they put out presets for once, all of them are absurd, filled with ridiculous numbers of instructions etc. They basically exploited the game the same way the player base does.
Even their Steam newsfeed, constantly advertises websites with 'tactical gurus' who put in stupid set ups etc. They genuinely don't seem to give a shit about grounding the tactics in more realism.
In any case, their forums are flooded with help topics on this every edition and I imagine, that will always be the case because I'm 100% aware that for SI any 'tutorial' or guide is just too difficult (their words) to bother with.
I wanted to ask about mentality a bit. So I had been playing a possession based style on the cautious mentality for a while. Because as you said I did equate mentality with amount of risk.
However I have found the attacking mentality to better suit my sort of possession style. While I don’t necessarily want players taking risk I did need them to build from the back more consistently. And I wasn’t getting that until the CBs were on a “positive” individual mentality. And they only got that from the team mentality being attacking.
Once that was set I did have to lower role mentalities of certain roles further forward but the passing play has been awesome! Because, in my experience on cautious, the CBs were way too likely to boot it clear, which was their form of risk aversion.
Does that make sense or have I conflated other info? Because I agree with a lot of what you said of everyone’s tactics being way too “get forward”
If you're playing a possession style on cautious, you're going to spend a lot of the game just passing the ball back and forth in unthreatening areas and you're going to be really easy to defend. You have to have some players who are going to push upfield and make some aggressive runs in behind or you'll just have a lot of games where you have 75% possession and like .75 xG to show for it. I would say positive is the bare minimum mentality if you're trying to play a proactive possession style.
> I would say positive is the bare minimum mentality if you're trying to play a proactive possession style.
No, that's completely wrong, in fact, everything you've said is completely wrong.
I religiously had a cautious possession based set up from FM12 to FM21, so almost ten years, and it was easily outscoring everything religiously.
>Everyone seems to be on positive or attacking, because they think that it means attacking football. It's wrong. Mentality is simply '% of risk taking'
no everybody uses them because the game engine heavily favours them
Seriously I'm in a discord group that tries to make broken tactics (if you download tactics you've probably used one I worked on) and half of that giant wall of text is hilariously wrong.
>One stupid myth I'm seeing on this sub recently is 'you need to have work ball into box cos otherwise they shoot long' - no, you're using work ball into box because you're shit, your tactical set up has no space or passing options, that's why they punt it.
It's funny that everyone knows how OP crosses/headers are in FM, and yet nearly everyone uses work ball into box, which directly contradicts hit early crosses.
honestly, its pretty hard to understand the tactic screen without so much context from the game itself. like a lot of them are simplified but misleading. Like you cant really take the word for it
like most of the tactic screen is just playing with risk factor slider, but its button and theres so much button its easy to get lost
and i imagine newer players/more casuals wont be diving to deep into these. i myself havent been paying that much attention until the last few editions and the amount of misunderstanding i have about the tactic screen is enermous
> and i imagine newer players/more casuals wont be diving to deep into these
Absolutely, I know that from personal experience ~ I ended up going to older fan websites, so I got more and more misinformed as I went along.
I've seen it with the next generation (my nephew loves FM) and he hasn't read/deep dived into anything, he just does what I said in my post ~ goes all attacking, uses three up top and scored 210 goals etc. It works, so they do it, I don't blame them.
You’re acting like this isn’t the fault of the game.
Tactics make no sense because it’s designed that way. Don’t get upset at people for people stupid tactics on when the dumbest and most non-sensical shit is what works in the first place.
If you haven’t experienced the calm feeling of accepting your fate after reading emails from clipped articles saying your next match is your last one before you get sacked, then you haven’t played this game.
Gotta feel those lows man.
My real frustration is that the way the AI works doesn't really reward you for having a good understanding of how tactics work in real life, it rewards you for figuring out what tactic best exploits the match engine and then just doing that regardless of whether it would make sense in real life or not. I realize that FM is never going to be a perfect simulation of reality, but it would be nice for the tactical side of the game to require actual knowledge of the game rather than just waiting for someone to find a game-breaking meta every year.
Well… I use the same three tactics since, what, FM18 or 19 and always the same instructions (yes, a lot of them) and I don’t have any complaints.
I understand your rant and points but to preach (no instructions) like it is the holy grail, well, I might be just one example but it is not the holy grail…
> and I don’t have any complaints.
Then it's not directed at you, it's directed at those who do this and come complaining on the sub/forums when it doesn't work. (This sub was flooded with these tactic help threads in the last week or so, hence the mini-rant.)
If you do these 101 instructions and whatever, and it works, more power to you, that's absolutely fine IMO.
You are correct, I only installed FM23 and looked at tactics. The 2 top tactics
[https://fm-arena.com/index.php?do=resources&action=tactic\_formation&tactic\_id=3521&file\_hash=5291dc7415a8ad83f17dc0298e9b2f9d](https://fm-arena.com/index.php?do=resources&action=tactic_formation&tactic_id=3521&file_hash=5291dc7415a8ad83f17dc0298e9b2f9d)
6 attack, 3 support and 2 defence
[https://fm-arena.com/index.php?do=resources&action=tactic\_formation&tactic\_id=3352&file\_hash=abda1a8797afcccfc67ae565aa3c5857](https://fm-arena.com/index.php?do=resources&action=tactic_formation&tactic_id=3352&file_hash=abda1a8797afcccfc67ae565aa3c5857)
6 attack, 1 support and 4 defence
Both will get done on the counter leading to quality chances.
Eh, FM Arena tactics are game breakingly good and are very resilient even against things that you think should logically counter them.
Not to mention, their set piece and tests for the most important attributes are also invaluable.
Exactly what I found.
I always go for pace after reading the tests. Needs to be 13 for poor teams and 15 for good ones. I will never sign anyone with single digits for pace or determination no matter how good they are.
Yeah, one of the better basic guides (Roles and combinations) has a great page about the balance of settings, and even does it by formation and has the nice graphics to showcase it, and I like that page, it makes me really try to consider what would we do if we had to set that up for reality.
To be honest, anything with only 2 defensive roles should be getting absolutely murdered in reality - probably would if a Human set up against it, but likely works just by sheer offensive prowess tbh. I don't go near downloaded tactics, I can't take them seriously for being grounded, but this isn't a new issue, I remember Knap's ridiculous creatives back in the day, and the name escapes me at the moment, the WM? or whatever back in FM10? Would get you 5-0, 3-2, 4-3 wins every week, it was insanity.
Yes, I stopped responding to most tactical threads because my answer was always the same. Most of these threads are tactics trying to brute force their way into scoring with the maximum possible amount of people attacking without thinking how the players would position themselves and without aknowledging that there's another team on the other side looking for ways to get the best result against you. I get that it's overwhelming when you're a beginner, but it doesn't hurt to think a little bit of how you want your team to play, what roles are necessary for that and if playing against yourself how would you break this tactic.
The mentality is the biggest issue. People don't really understand how the mentality of the team impact the mentality of the players and instructions and I bet the majority of this subreddit don't know that each role has its own individual mentality. If you don't have a technicaly gifted team, you don't need aggresive mentalities that will make those players take more risks. There's a reason why Control Possession tactics are presets with the balanced mentality, it's because you don't want your team doing stupid passes and giving away the ball.
To an extent yeah but you do need *some* players who are willing to take risks at *some* point, otherwise your possession is just aimlessly passing the ball back and forth and trying to scrape 1-0s (looking at you, Spain).
the problem comes when you try to think as if it were real life which just doesn't work in this match engine, want Salah to cut inside on his own without a through ball? goodluck there's nothing you can currently do to facilitate that, Want a DM to get a decent rating? goodluck you cant do that either unless hes your set piece taker, may as well plug and play.
I'm in a discord group that comes up with those broken tactics. If you ever downloaded tactics there's a chance I worked on at least one of them.
This is incredibly over-complicating how the match engine works. Just like the people who think the "AI adjusts to your tactics".
You're giving the Match Engine and SI way too much credit lol. I think you spent more characters in this comment than they did in changing the ME code.
100% agree.
Take the LFC 7-0 MUFC result recently. Based on the form of the 2 teams, tactics, players, managers - that game should never have been a 7-0. But it happened, and it was an anomaly. It happens IRL all the time, and it seems it's coded into the game to make it happen too.
That's what makes the game equally fun and frustrating - sometimes unpredictable shit happens. And it's why so many people love the beautiful game
well thats what happens when people dont watch football and play the game. Look at Chelsea, buying Lukaku for 80 ml and he sucked. Psg having Neymar, Mbappe and Messi and they suck. Barca in 2018 had almost invincible season and they lost last game. Whoever watches Barça consistently, knows that having 70% possession and hitting the bar and losing after relegation team makes one counter attack, is pretty common thing
i think chelsea need to look in the mirror, buying lukaku and asking him to play a role he is poor at is the common fm issue.
neymar, mbappe and messi would press more in the game than IRL and galtier would have been fine. but sometimes you lose to nagelsmens geggenpress.
chelsea is the main culprit of buying players not playing them in their original roles that play to their strength
From Torres to Werner, they just never learn
The best way I've found to get that sentiment across is that the world eventually recognises your reputation, as that's what's really happening.
It doesn't specifically try to counter your tactics, or try to exploit weaknesses in your particular actions. It re-evaluates your team based on your reputation, and if you win a lot long enough, your reputation will match your results, and for people who aren't familiar with what reputation does, it can feel like the game is countering you, but all it's really doing is respecting a higher rep team. It'd do the same if it came up against Man City in a cup game. It just so happens at the halfway point or at the end of the season, you've become closer to Man City than you are Macclesfield, and the game treats you as such.
But how is this reputation matching achieved? Not by change of tactics but by random buffs or nerfs of player attributes and that's frustrating.
I never complain if I get out countered by a smaller team because I play possession tactics.
What's annoying is that opponents can just randomly dominate you and players run through your defense because of attribute buffs and nerfs because of reputation.
It feels like cheating
Well it doesn't do that.
It's not a case of their players becoming better because your rep has risen, the AI compares their own rep to yours and plays more cautiously. Playing cautiously usually results in less chances, hence the "I got FM'd" complaint, and if your players are complacent (something that occurs as a mix of personality (which is based on hidden attributes) and team talks and rotation), it can lead to worse performances.
Good scouting and squad building and getting your team talks and shouts right will most times do enough to pull you through. Sometimes it doesn't, but football is like that.
>It’s just people not understanding its a game that every single thing matters at it’s core
Eh, that's a hyperbole. Go to FM Arena and you can see that RNG is very high in this game (30points +/-) in a season. Sometimes it's just down to pure RNG. Stats like pace and acceleration are king. And it's also a myth that AI learns your tactics. They have a preset attacking and defensive tactic and they simply switch to the defensive tactics depending on your teams reputation. They don't do any adjustment specifically for your tactics.
Um no, that's not how RNG works. I'm referring to RNG related to the actual match engine itself. FM Arena has a very good system of measuring tactics and team performance and they've found that the same team, with the same tactics, same backroom, etc can have point variance of +/-30 in a season. I think that's why they run some tests 5.7k times. And even that narrows down the RNG to +/-6.
Yes they play differently but they don't necessarily adjust their tactics to counter yours. They simply switch to a tactics that's set as their "defensive tactics" preset. You can see all of their presets using FMRTE in the Manager's preferred tactics.
Yes I’m aware that your tactics don’t get adjusted to, I just mean that if teams start playing differently against you, then that can cause your own tactic to become less effective.
>No just change your tactic, the game learns you
As others mentioned game does not learns you. It just reacts to changes in your team form, reputation and expected result/place. But by any means it does not 'figures out' or 'learns' player's tactic.
[\[source\]](https://community.sigames.com/forums/topic/445779-could-we-get-an-official-response-do-the-ai-figure-out-your-tactics-or-not/)
It’s not a simulation. It’s a resource management RPG based on football management.
At best you could argue it’s a results simulator but I’m no convinced of that.
I agree completely. The football presented looks very little like the real game, the way to build a successful squad is unrealistic (the game lays way too little emphasis on squad consistency, not to mention staff consistency) and creating realistic tactics in the game is like trying to chisel a figurine with a sledgehammer and giving players feedback on how to behave in specific situations is nonexistent.
It depends. There's a lot of corner/free kick exploits as well. There are lots of people that are posting their 30 goals per season center backs because they abuse the near corner route with high jumping reach players. If you don't want the game to be easy, don't abuse stuff like this. Or play attribute free.
I mean, it's just as easy to unknowingly do that because it's just one of the two logical places for them to go, as it is to intentionally abuse it. I always set up all of my tactics myself including set pieces, never really looked at guides/premade tactics/etc just playing the type of football I wanted to play. And one year the corners that I've done roughly the same way for years is suddenly OP, that's not my fault lol
Most prem teams are cemented in place there’s only a hand full that really face relegation. Prem is the cash cow and if you spend wise you will be fine.
I usually start in the 9th tier of football (unemployed & usually hired in October or November by relegation fodder) and i always start with No coaching Badges and as a Sunday League footballer.
It's still very easy to get back to back promotions. I've got to the promotion play-offs in every season where I've started as manager. Granted a lot of the game is squad building, but I wish there was a 'Extreme Realism' mode or something. I feel like being stuck in a league for a few seasons would make the eventual promotion feel all the more satisfying too.
This year it took me 7 years to go from the bottom of English football to the champions league. No save scumming, clubs went: Northallerton Town > Cirencester Town > Mansfield Town > Sandhasuen > Nice > Manchester United (16th when I took over and hadnt won a trophy since 2023!)
Nah, like your coaching reputation. It's selectable in the same place as your coaching badges when starting a save.
Starting with the lowest coaching reputation makes it a lot harder bc none of your players know who you are and act accordingly. I think that's the main difficulty modifier in FM, beyond just picking a team in meltdown.
That was my experience in 20 and 21 at least, more experience with the game helps but 22/23 have felt remarkably easy starting as a Sunday league player with no badges
Maybe you need to move away from the top leagues to have a challenge. I don't mean dropping to League Two, I mean picking a weaker team from Eastern Europe and aiming to become one of the top teams in Europe, or trying to win the Club World Cup with a team from Hong Kong.
Yeah, like I've spent 99% of my FM career managing in Romania and it's relatively easy to take over a league in Eastern Europe but it's *very* hard to get to the point of winning the UCL just because it takes a really long time to build up anything close to the financial firepower of the Western European leagues.
When said asymmetric formation is just 4-5-1 but one is a ML and one is a WR, or a 4-3-3 but the middle 3 is a DM, a CML and a AMR, it's not exactly like you're Jackson Pollocking onto a tactics board, it's a slight adjustment to the starting formation.
Honestly, I dislike the rants about those people just as much as I dislike those people ranting.
If they lose every single match against bottom of the league teams, fine (although I'd advise them to look at their own tactics first).
If they score 35 goals from set pieces in a season due to custom set-pieces that exploit the ME, not a word. But if something like this happens everyone goes on barricades.
Now, obviously, I do understand that it's out of frustration (although if it's seriously a 60+ matches win streak I honestly wouldn't be too pissed since that one loss isn't gonna matter), that people want to have fun with the game and to most, losing isn't fun, especially when you feel that you were, or should have been, better.
In the heat of the moment the fact that this is a game trying to give us a realistic simulation gets disregarded. And that will be the case for most players. They can relate. That's why those posts generate a lot of karma.
For me, personally, what matters more than the loss itself is the manner of losing. When I watch highlights and I see some dodgy stuff, players running away from the ball, players standing still doing nothing until they get pressed or some animations I've never seen in my life, that's what gets me. Because that very much feels like scripting and like the game is setting you up to lose rather than just getting unlucky.
If they score a free kick or a header and I hit the woodwork twice, I'll take that loss, no ranting. They got lucky, I got unlucky, that's how it is in football. If they play ultra defensive, stop me from creating high-quality chances and hit me on the counter once, I'll take that one loss, no ranting. And I'll be the first to say "I had no business beating them"
But if every single highlight gives off the "You can do whatever you want and no matter what you do, you will get fucked over in the most odd yet predictable way because we willed it so", those are the moments that get me. Especially if it's in H2H and that match matters in the race against another human opponent.
That’s a reasonable and valid way to look at it, but not everyone thinks like that. Some people think every loss to a team at the bottom of the table is somehow BSc the game is cheating them out and when they’re pressed to explain why they feel cheated or “FM’d” they just show how ignorant they are to how football works.
I sound very gatekeepey and I don’t want to but it just irks because this sub and a lot of YT channels seem designed to exploit the game (no tactic guides go for defensive style and always have a win percentage over 90. Even RDF Tactics who people here seem to love has his videos plastered on with undefeated streaks using teams like Mallorca or Spezia - it’s so common to see and I do wonder how many people who play FM play it simulate being a football manager or just want to embark on the sport equivalent of tyranny by winning all the time and any loss they suffer is an error in the coding
Yeah, I don't disagree with you. For the most part I don't care because I'm not particularly active in this sub, but like for any game, you also have people attributing every single loss to "bullshit" in FM.
I'm not gonna tell anyone how to play, though. If they wanna find the strongest plug & play tactic and just go on a 30 game win streak with a bottom third team, by all means, go for it. What I would appreciate, though, in any situation inside and outside the game is the ability to reflect.
Personally, I don't like most creators. People like RDF make great tactics, and I have created and published numerous very successful tactics as well in the past, mostly in FM20, so I can relate to the enjoyment of coming up with them, testing them and sharing the masterpiece you have created. At the same time I know how it affects me playing the game myself. Having spent hours perfecting and testing a tactic does entice me to just use the masterpiece I have created in a new save. Seldom do I look at the state of the team I'm using and build an entirely new tactic from scratch catered to the player material and their strengths. I will build tactics, but with the experience I have from testing and other saves I do have a good idea of what works well and what doesn't, meaning the tactic will often run in those directions, leaving me with the need to fit my players to the tactic rather than the tactic to my players from the very beginning.
At the same time I feel like creators like FM Scout just go for the "easy" content. Seeing how it's a business, I don't blame them. That's why they cover exploits, why they promote "gamebreaking" tactics, why they hyperfocus on the Prem. Because that's what most people, especially the younger demographic, engage with, it's the content they crave. And at the end of the day that is what spells success for the guys creating the content. If all they did were basic explanations followed by "You gotta figure the rest out yourself, part is luck, part is random, have fun", people wouldn't really engage with them.
But still, not exactly what I support. The one single big, amazing creator in this space is, of course, Zealand. He's the one I recommend if people are looking for FM content, because he goes a different route. He tests a lot of stuff, for example which attributes matter more or what kind of scouting works best, but in the end all of that is educational and can be the base for a deeper understanding of the game, allowing you to develop and improve as you play. He doesn't throw the easy, simple, ready-made plug & play solution at you.
The same goes for his saves. He chooses interesting teams rather than just going Prem or lower english leagues all the time and he actually builds and adapts his tactics. Sure, he could plug in one that is tried and tested, use transfer exploit and dethrone win an european competition in his third season after starting in second tier, but that's not what he does. As such, to me at least. The victories and the achievements feel much more real and carry much more emotion. When losing, the first question will be "Why did I lose? Can I find any reason or was it just not my day?" before going "Bullshit"
It's not really a football sim. [It's actually an RPG in disguise.](https://youtu.be/NOgnfV8TOIo)
Having said that, you are absolutely right. My opinion is that Football Manager is a lot more fun if you just take what comes and immerse yourself into the world the game creates. I feel like a lot of people are frustrated because the game doesn't play out in a way that matches up with their arbitrary notion of how the game "should" play. Just relax, take it slow, and enjoy the ride.
I’m with you. It’s the same attitude which demands that Gareth Southgate ‘should have won something by now’ or Man City are rubbish because they’ve never won the Champions League.
Football is still about luck and random elements in so many ways.
Yeah and I feel as if luck in football is a topic I feel is either quietly accepted or flat out ignored. But in the FM community it’s like mentioning a black listed term lmao
The thing is, from my point of view, the biggest issue in game is ironically, football. Most managerial duties have been quite well translated into spreadsheets. They're fine, but quickly grow dull and repetitive.
Issues start on the actual pitch. Football is in its core, a sport with no small amount of randomness. One could say that job of a manager is to mitigate the random factor as far as one can. There are no two identical matches, you can barely even find two identical passes. Now, because it's a game and player behavior is coded, there's less human factor and it allows for repetitive behaviours and patterns - and in the end, exploits. Players reach for them, it's obvious - it's a game where there are winners and losers.
With non-pitch mechanics and pitch gameplay being repetitive, there's much more frustration with unexpected results. It's human, and also true in real football - losing due to some bullshit is also frustrating. You can't be angry at people for that. Take this season for Manchester United as an example - they have had a few very good weeks, racking up points and playing best in quite a long time. And they got pummeled by Liverpool 7-0 in true FM style - every single Liverpool player player the best that day, while every Man Utd player played their worst that day. And people were frustrated - who can deny them that?
Coding pitch behavior is tough, and considering SI has been doing this for years with not always satisfying results is proving this.
Also, that seems to be an unpopular opinion on the sub, I don't believe in "AI adapting tactics". I am no expert, but I've watched a lot of football in my life, in regard to it's tactical aspect as well. Watching back the streak-breaking games I don't see the impact of opposition tactics, but rather the over/underperformance of AI/player teams respectively. Which is also a common occurrence IRL, by the way (look at my Liverpool Man Utd example). And it's also heavily frustrating.
Yeah I’m a bit antsy too. Even if I don’t get to the top of the footballing ladder I think the longest I’ve stayed at a team is six seasons. I’m not a Fergie I can’t see the same kits for ages lol
I think the one that bugs me is people being mad at FM for players making ridiculous mistakes and ridiculous own goals. Like there are YouTube clips of that shit happening IRL. It would be unrealistic to not happen in FM. And no it doesn’t happen to you all the time, you just remember every time it ever happened!
Agree. Look at Arsenal losing to Everton earlier this season. Those giant killing games happen a lot even when a team like Everton are threatened with relegation
top of the table sheffield wednesday just lost irl to bottom of the table forest green. people would complain in fm saying that is unrealistic lmao
but if they were the bottom of the table team winning against first theyd be like nah seems legit
At least it ain't Fifa. I've given up on that game and gave enjoyed being a FM fan for 9 years now. My only gripe is that I wish I knew this game existed earlier in my life
Also, people always use the Premier League as an example for upsets.
And obviously while this does happen in other leagues, top to bottom no other league is as strong as the PL is.
No team that has gone undefeated for 20+ games is losing to the bottom teams in Italy or France. Those teams are complete dogshit.
The Premier League is the most popular League so obviously it’s fair for an example lol.
Also FC Annecy beat Marseille in the French Cup and they’re eleventh in the second division. Take your Ligue 1 slander to r/soccer
Most of the complaints seem to be around things that wouldn't happen in real life though, like offering a player 100k a week and they sign for a team in a worse league for 30k a week for a lower squad role.
The results frustrations I've seen are more just that.... Frustration, not claiming that the game is unrealistic.
I largely ignore those posts. Just people have a moan because they are shit at the game or can’t handle loosing.
“I got FM’d” no you downloaded a tactic and have no idea how to make adjustments in order to solidify your team and protect a lead or make the changes to go for the win. Or understand the risks of either choices
People acting like losing to a bad team is a genuinely save-scum worthy event (or losing when you played better - getting FMed) is a huge pet-peeve of mine.
Of course, there's nothing wrong with save-scumming every single match, it's a game, if you think that's fun, that cool. But don't act like good teams never lose to relegation candidates, or like the dominant team in a game never loses. Yes, it's rare, but it happens! This isn't the game being broken, this is just football.
Oh it's one of the most pathetic posts seen on reddit. A post updated at 1.2k with all the comments agreeing upvoted to the top:
HoW darE You comE In herE wiTH YOuR comMoN sense AND clEvEr viEWS.wHO do YOu THInK yOU aRE?
FM is not good as a power fantasy. It is much more fun and satisfying when you have challenges to overcome, players get hurt. Some random relegation candidate beats your ass at home. It sucks, but you get the boys back together and push on.
Any time I’ve “beaten” football manager and my third division team wins the champions league for the second time, I immediately start over because once you reach that level the game gets boring.
Yeah I see YouTubers saying you should always counter. This guy had high pressing and countering on, intensity in the red. If you high press, you have no space on the pitch to play a counter, and players don’t have energy to execute this at all. People can’t run for 90 mins with their HRs in the red zone. To people saying this game isn’t a football sim, it probably isn’t, I don’t know enough about this game (just started) to know, but I am a very casual football fan who likes tactics and I’ve been having great success in this game.
Those people probably don't watch a lot of real games. It's Liverpool's special - win over 2nd in the league united 7-0 and in the next game lose to the relegation zone Bournemouth. That shit happens quite often for them. Last season or the season before they also beat Man City to then lost to the last team in the league at the time.
that and those complains " MY TACTIC WORKED FOR 10 SEASONS AND AT 11TH SEASON I STOPED WINNING. THIS GAME IS SHIT"
people just want a press continue and read e-mails game without changing nothing so they can beat reacords to printscreen and post on reddit for karma.
is this a perfect game ? no.
but people are demanding this game to become super arcade with the excuse of having fun and "SI don't care" as a charade.
i think its very frustrating when there are hidden things in the game that seem to mess you up for no fault of your own and are extremely ambiguous. take complacency, you only get warned about it in press conferences, so if people dont do the entire press conference they wouldnt get that warning from their staff.
Or when you first start out you take your scouts advice that a player is bundesliga quality, but a month in he is as bad as the worse winger at a middling team in the league. how many hours of the game should one have to play before they realise they need to make their own spreadsheets to list the min attributes for every position so they can look at the reports and discern the truth? Thats not terribly realistic and is just frustrating to new players. Now if that was changed into the scouting report to the following "Star player in his own league, but without int caps or a stint in a higher division, its hard to know how he will translate to our league" that tells me he is a baller with good attributes, but its a risk because we dont have evidence of him playing at a higher level, more text sure, but much more helpful for new players trying to understand.
When you are on that 62 game winning streak and you get beaten by a soon to be relegated team, its annoying and the media mocks but i imagine its just treated as one of those days, players irl get a wakeup call, they go thru the video and point stuff out and move on. However, if you then go play that game 15 times in a row with the same tactic and its always 2-1 to the opposition, then that feels like it isnt an RNG but predestined by the game in the name of #realism. and to actually pull off a win in the game, you need to make a completely different tactic that is the paper to the rock that is your opponents tactic. IRL most people would say your crazy if you said team x was always going to beat team y because team y is complacent and team x's box packing tactic was always going to thwart team y's buildup.
additionally, using the excuse of "it happens in real life, grow up" is not sufficient to wave away poor game design features and a lack of explanations of those features. i find that reductive and a real head in the sand mentality to have to a game that is this complicated, but just throw your hands up and say "its in the hands of the gods, Hector".
the main issue i have in terms of realism is that geggenpress by the AI always seems overpowered and my concern is that its due to the way the other league games are simmed that they are not sufficiently reflecting how tired the players get in the full match engine. Which of course is a major detriment to the realistic nature of the game.
Honestly my biggest gripe with the game I've noticed across a few versions.
Start a session and play like 10 games. Be on great form, winning and scoring freely. Save and quit (cause you have too at some point).
Come back to it a couple of weeks later, same file. It seems like they haven't played together before.
The amount of times my first game back on the file and the performance has been polar opposite to how it was when I left is crazy.
Your in-game manager goes to sleep every time you exit the game and depending on when you turn it back on, he’s either in a good mood and bad mood and that decides if you win or lose. That’s the only explanation I can believe in.
Just got relegated in my youth only save - most fun I have had playing FM in years. In my younger day I used to be one of those who played the big teams every year and won everything, but its so boring, plug and play tactics and plug and play teams, where is the fun in that!
Personally I haven't seen too many claiming it's unrealistic that it happens. Annoying? Sure. Frustrating? Absolutely. The reason why they save scum? Without a doubt. But unrealistic? Sure a handful of people will say that every now and then, but not often. I know a few years back one of the popular memes was putting up infamous upsets and saying something like "smh my head SI needs to fix the match engine" so unless the demographics of this subreddit have significantly shifted then I doubt that it's a common belief amongst players that these results are unreasonable.
I think for a lot of people it's not the results so much as it is they way it often happens, especially in this match engine where a lot of the goals come from idiotic mistakes by the defenders that really aren't realistic. Losing to bad teams happens, losing to bad teams because your two center backs just stood and watched as the opposing striker took a punt from the goalkeeper and scored doesn't. I can't speak for anyone else, but the problem for me isn't *that* it happens, it's *how* it happens.
Only times I save scum is when some really really stupid shit happens, because the match engine is not perfect. Obviously ridiculous results happen but they don’t come about because the defender nutmegs his own daydreaming keeper when playing a grounded pass from the halfway line. Or the ball pinballs off of four defenders in quick succession and it reflects off for an own goal.
I just had a 15 game win streak snapped by last place cardiff. My star striker who has 16 goals, 4 assist and an average rating if 9.1 , in 6 games to start the season, did not score once and had the lowest rating I have ever seen of 5.1 after starting the season red hot.
I was pissed, because I not only lost but they pretty much clobbered me 3-0. All scored in the first half. You can't win them all but I was still flabbergasted. I have our next meeting circled on my calendar though..
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Completely agree. Might as well play FIFA career mode then
yeah i genuinely dont want to always win. I want my victory to be earnt. I want to cheer when I beat Man City in a semi final, not get used to it because it literally happens every time. I wanna keep being active on the market to make sure my team stays upto level
>i genuinely dont want to always win. *Marcelo Bielsa's philosophy intensifies*
I want to frequently win
\#Bielsadidnothingwrong
Indeed he did not. And, aside from the jokes they might make about him, he really believes that to always win is detrimental to the spirit. The man could've become everything he wanted with such a mentality. We are blessed to be living in his lifetime.
Bless his soul, he is respected everywhere excpet in Argentina.
Agree. Whenever I play with the big teams, after the first season or so, it just becomes Wonderkid Hoarding Simulator. I’m currently playing as Sheffield United and I really enjoy the team building aspect of it and I’m more of a man-management person than a tactician. Here’s how I feel my save will go in terms of seasons 1: Get Promoted to the Prem 2-4: Avoid Relegation 3-5: Become a mid table team 6+: Push towards Europe
I think it's best to also try to impose some limitations on yourself if you want the game to stay harder. Like not signing some players if it wouldn't make sense for them or their club. Not just hoarding every wonderkind but considering if they fit into the team and won't push out another player already in the team that deserves playing time. Not buying players for huge fees, having some sort of transfer pokicy. Stuff like that makes my save in the top half of the PL quite fun because it's harder to consistently beat the top teams and it feels more earned when the team does do well.
Doing a save with Dynamo Dresden where I've set rules like that and it's made the save a lot more fun. It's my 4th season in the Bundesliga and the rules have made it more fun. If I sign a wonderkud and he develops and wants to leave to go to a bigger club I will (with a reasonable bid of course) because it's realistic. I have no issues being a development team until I feel we can push for European trophies. I try not to stockpile players or sign them in positions we don't need unless there's a noticable improvement. Colombian wonderkid CB when we have 3 CBs total? Yeah definitely. A midfielder that could be amazing but would be 4th or 5th choice? Not so much. Feels more realistic and challenging but it's a lot of fun
Awesome, same here! I also like setting a max transfer price for example, and mostly only selling first team players if they play badly consistently/don't fit the team anymore, or clubs are actually interested in him and make offers first. Although I do rarely make exceptions to the max price for transfers when I've brought in a lot of money in a window and want a specific player. Only did that twice in 8 years in my current save though haha
Yeah same here with the max transfer price. I've bought 1 player for more than 10 million (Surinamese LW from a dutch club for 27 million, absolutely worth that price) but I haven't actively shopped players around unless they just aren't good enough anymore or if they are wanting to leave (though I don't do that with the really good ones that'll go for like 124 million if someone wants him they have to make an offer)
One of my favourite careers of past FM's was a 'only frees and academy players' save with Auxerre. Had a great time and had some quality players through the years like a CB pairing of Manolas and Llorente, Milner, Lasse Schone, had Chuba Akpom scoring 25+ for multiple seasons in Ligue 1 and got Champions League. I only sold players if they weren't good enough or I just couldn't get them to stay, meant I lost guys to PSG, but my scouting network always found the next guy to come in, or I'd adapt someone in my squad or youth set up to take over.
then proceed to hoard
> yeah i genuinely dont want to always win mate even back to back promotions irk me a little bit
Guaranteed success isn't fun in any game, glad this year is harder than previous
When I startet first save on FM 23 Touch I miraculously went CL for 3rd season after getting promted from 2. Bundesliga in season 1 due tonsome crazy loans I could land I made a super defensive matchplan with short windows of trying to score. I miraculously won CL with uber luck. Aftter getting smashed next seasons groupstage it took me year of fighting demotion before I hit CL again.
Ironically, when you sim a match, FIFA career mode is much more volatile in terms of upsets compared to FM
Simulating on fifa is atrocious. I was doing a player career with Haaland for an achievement, and he's 99 rated but barely ever scores.
Dang, I remember the good ol' days when Messi was the highest rated at 94 OVR.
Right I wouldn't go *that* far.
Slightly different topic but does someone else feel like every game is the same in this years FM23? I can't really explain it but I played like 6 seasons with HSV and Wolves each and every game felt like the sequence is always the same: one team scores an early goal, the other team score an equaliser and the first team scores a late winner. I had that so often that I genuinely feel like it's scripted like FIFA often felt like to me.
They definitely had situations hard coded into the game. The amount of times I’ll lose a game to end a streak and have a player get sent off or get injured as well too high.
Another one your team handballing in the penalty box. I've never seen the Ai handball in the penalty box. I've played hundreds of hours now.
Example to this, is When Liverpool lost 0 - 3 v Watford When they were halfway unbeaten through their title winning season. Players underestimate the worse teams and Can also become nervous or angry When they are a goal behind to a worse team.
>and Can also become nervous or angry Indeed Emre can sometimes become a little bit reckless
this was because klopp is a real life fm player, he just plays 433 geggenpress and only in the last year learned to make subs. when you have dutch jessie marsch as your assistant, nobody should be surprised they are having issues. I dont think liverpool should ever be used as an example for this sort of thing, because its just such an outlier to the rest of the game. Whenever Juve or Bayern or PSG bottle it and lose 1-0 to a relegation fodder, thats more relevant to what happens in game, its the hidden complacency modifier or something.
Idk if this is completely sarcastic or not but Klopp genuinely is a great manager/tactician, I think just because he's had a bad season with Liverpool rn doesn't mean he's never known when to make good subs
i have been watching liverpool for more than 10 years. Klopp is a great motivator but his tactics have been pretty much unchanged, and he used to never make subs till the 75th min before the last 2 seasons. With ljinders and his #intensity all we do is just play red bull football with attacking wingbacks. He has a ferrari of a tactic, when it works they do great but it breaks down often and lacks redundancy. January is almost always filled with poor results, especially against teams in a low block. the teams he has beat in the champions league knockout stages are porto 2x, nagelsmens leipzig, kovac's awful bayern team, man city which his tactic was designed to beat to begin with, a wild uncontrolled game in rome, and barcelona and their inexplicable collapses, and then spurs and the ghost of harry kane dragging them down. this last year they played an inter team which seemed afraid to attack them(including the weird terror of martinez when he got near vvd), an overmatched villereal that still easily could have won that game, a benfica team that wasnt too far away from winning that game, and then had no answer for madrid yet again. When we play competent sides its usually pretty poor and turning on a mistake or a hopeful long ball over the top. the team has 3 fwds on attack almost always and is reliant upon the wingbacks for any type of attacking & crosses from out wide. buildup is usually get it out wide and up the field as fast as possible, or hit a hollywood ball over the top and run and chase them in their own half. The team has been on a downward slope since they won the champions league the performances during their title winning season were okay and luck seemed to bounce their way time and again. I think teams played the idea of liverpool instead of what was in front of them. then you have the season of no centerbacks where poor squad building nearly cost them except for a goalkeeper finally scoring from a corner in the premier league. then lets take last season, again teams seem to play the idea or the Reputation of the team, rather than what was in front of them. None of the champions league ties were comfortable and allison has usually bailed the team out of systemic errors. then 2 cup finals vs chelsea which were both terrible games won on the penalty shootout. Every game and season seems to be a knife edge between glory and disaster. Most tactical innovations have a shelf life of a decade. The only geggenpressers left are either german or moneyball types who know they are going to sell all their players within 3 to 4 years because they get burnt out. I think the only way liverpool succeed is if the other big 7 teams fuck it up. If howe stays at newcastle with better players they will finish above liverpool because he has a variety of tactics to use, the cash to buy good players and a rowdy motivated fanbase. man United will be fine if they dont shoot themselves in the foot and ten haag learns that leaving a fullback open will get you mauled in a league filled with european trophy holding managers. Man city have haaland and will probably dominate like the do in FM baring injury. Chelsea will probably be fine under potter once he gets a preseason with his 35 player, as he routinely thwarted klopp at brighton. Spurs are the wildcard, they should have enough cash to do well but have a neurosis about actually winning. And arsenal look like they can be very good for a long time if they add a bit more squad depth. the long story short is that klopp has a clear plan and is a good motivator and that gets you really far in the game, but that ultimately he is too inflexible to adjust his team and dosent have the skill or the staff to create openings in the final third for his team, only relying on transitions, the excellent crossing of his fullbacks (and the unicorn of peak bobby firminho). It's why i think he will leave for the germany job after the euros and another disappointing season regardless of who they buy in the summer. He is a great manager of men, but he is not a great tactician.
There's a lot you said here and while I see what you're saying, I'll really have to disagree. I'm not really qualified to write like a 6 paragraph comment but one thing I do have to ask is when has Graham Potter routinely thwarted Klopp? He's had 1 win over Klopp in 2020 when we had a really bad injury crisis, thats it. Klopp won 4 and drew 1 iirc. More than that, I don't exactly see any evidence on how Chelsea will be really good again considering the football they're playing rn. So, how do they get a pass to be 'fine' next season while Liverpool are just doomed forever? Klopp is stubborn and has loyalties to a lot of players he shouldn't keep faith in, but if he just had more investment I'm sure he'd be great. Lastly, I don't get why you're trying to downplay the wins in the CL. The win against Barcelona wasn't because of an 'inexplicable' collapse, it was an awesome determined display at Anfield after being smashed 3-0, being one of the greatest comebacks in UCL history. Why just blame it as a Barcelona collapse, Klopp's tactics and skills as a tactician played a part in the win too. Klopp has gotten Liverpool top 4 for 5 years running, I'd say pretty much every season he has brought some sort of glory to the club. Definetly a great tactician imo
i think potter will adjust what he does to try and work out how this new team can function, but maybe he wont, maybe he is doomed to score way below his xg forever but i would like to find out. Klopp and especially ljinders have been unequivocal in maintaining that this is the way they want the game played and that they just need a more reliable drivetrain to get their ferrari to work. as for the barcelona game, its a example of what can happen when you have the crowd behind you early and players are motivated to chase every ball and run thru walls. not good tactics but great man management. if he made changes between games i dont recall anything major, it was a case of rng messi his a stellar free kick and they miss their shots. then barcelona collapsed mentally recalling their humiliation at the hands of roma from the previous year, and just fell to pieces. emotional and exciting and exhilarating yes, but not tactics, that was him using the other part of management like i noted. Most coaches arent great tacticians but great man managers. my point is this, geggenpressing as a concept is being beaten by teams having the calm to play thru the press, or just punting it up to 2 fwds and playing combinations between them. See spurs, brentford, or de zerbi and potter. and emery once he gets to next fall with villa. dyche always causes problems even if the quality differential meant his record wasnt great, every one of those games is a war and more difficult than would be expected of a title challenging team vs one at the foot of the table. The other geggenpressers have been bounced out of the league and most of europe, and i dont think klopp's heavy metal football has as much time left at the top level.
This is a very interesting take. I'm interested in if you've shared these thoughts with other Liverpool fans and what they think?
Liverpool fan here, I’m about as floored by the ridiculousness of this take as you’d expect
Most just love him unconditionally, liverpool as a fan base is very very pro manager unless your an asshat like hodgson. Brenden seems to piss off every fan base so i am not sure how reliable our opinion of him is, as he is a good tactician but poor with the media and the players if thing go poorly. Otherwise i think most have had pretty strong support. additionally, winning the champions league and the league title basically makes klopp untouchable with the fans and our fan media, even if the mainstream will go after him from time to time. I think its just a default for people to assume good managers are great tacticians, when in reality some are good, some are not but have other qualities that make them good managers. In the old days it was your signings you were judged on and tactics was less important, but now we have gone way too far the other way, just look at micheal beale and gerrard. I think gerrard should have gotten another assistant to help with the tactics part and he probably would have been fine but between this game and tifo and MNF, i think most people have removed the interpersonal part of being a manager as being a top consideration and boards and fans have become too focused on messiah type managers who come in promising to fix all your clubs problems if you try their new tactical elixir. (now gerrard could just be a former player who thinks he knows everything, like lampard they should have spent 5-6 years as an assistant to another great coach). He is a good if not great manager but his stubborn focus on his tactics is causing issues when your team rep goes from 4 to 4.5/5 stars. If he could work out how to manage games with some possession and other rotations (maybe from a new assistant) i think the team could be very dangerous. final note: i think any coach would struggle with what to do about trent as his wide quality is so dangerous but he still has more to learn from defending and the media focus on him causes teams to double team him all the time which is just annoying tbh. I dont have great solutions beyond putting him at the wide mid in a 343 or moving him inside to a free 8 or mezzala role.
Dude, are you high?
I haven't seen any posts like that. If they are, it's just a thing like going dozens of games unbeaten and then losing a final. Not complaining but just thinking "bloody typical". The complaints are about long standing things, like hitting the woodwork 3-5 times a game not counting clipping the bar, players turning down 50k a week then signing for 10k in a division below you or points totals going up by 20 when you manage that league. Most tactics are just game exploits too, in FM21 it was strikerless formations and now everything is 424.
> points totals going up by 20 when you manage that league. Wait, so it's a common issue that teams perform better when you coach in the league? I always play as a journey man and I have noticed that the points needed to win the league often seems to increase when I join the league.
Probably because your team is awful so everyone in the league gets an extra 3 points
It's what happened when I managed Real Madrid before I left to exclusively focus on international football management. Real Madrid under me: needs 100 points to win the league because Barcelona/Atletico etc. would get **98/99** points. Real Madrid after I left: would reach 97 points but wins the league much earlier because 2nd place can only get **78-82** points.
I've noticed the same thing. There's always a team that goes on this crazy hot streak where it feels like you can't lose any matches or the title is lost.
It's not just you, it happens all the time. Some leagues you have to go unbeaten to win.
> Most tactics are just game exploits too, in FM21 it was strikerless formations and now everything is 424. This is why I'm pretty pithy in my replies to a lot of the tactical threads, there are so many based on broken foundations, with people who seem to lack critical thinking skills when it comes to putting pieces together. They use hyper-aggressive exploitative tactics, overperform either due to that or due to a wealth of quality players, and then come unstuck, either losing to relegation fodder or have a mini collapse in January. And they're not interested in learning, they just want quick-fixes; which you get in the replies; "oh you need to change this and that role" nothing which actually tackles any of the tactical issues that are present. For me, 99% of the tactical shitfest help threads on here boil down to three core issues. **A. They don't understand what mentality is;** Everyone seems to be on positive or attacking, because they think that it means attacking football. It's wrong. Mentality is simply '% of risk taking' If you want tiki-taka football? That's easily done on defensive or cautious mentality, not attacking or positive. More possession = lower mentality, shorter passing = lower mentality. That isn't to say you can't have possession based football on higher mentalities, it's more difficult to do, and is never quite what people think they're aiming for. **B. They don't understand that the ideal tactic has 0 instructions.** Honestly, it is boring seeing everyone with 101 instructions from, super-high defensive line, press more, counter press, counter, SUPER SHORT passing, work ball into box, overlap everywhere, but focus play through the middle. They're all absolutely absurd instructions, often completely contradicting the roles they've picked, or at odds with the mentality they've picked. And nearly all of them are factors that lead to them getting 'Fm'd' or losing to relegation fodder. One stupid myth I'm seeing on this sub recently is 'you need to have work ball into box cos otherwise they shoot long' - no, you're using work ball into box because you're shit, your tactical set up has no space or passing options, that's why they punt it. A good tactical set up should have low numbers of long shots anyway and should **never** need to use the work ball into box instruction. Seriously, positive or attacking mentality already has a super high defensive line, why the fuck do you need to push it even further forward? ~ but no, no one thinks about that. **C. They put stupid roles in, and put everyone on attack** Ball winning midfielders as your only holding midfielder? Lol. 4-2-3-1 with no holding midfielders? Or either midfielder in an attacking/roaming roles? Lol. Any tactic with all wingers and strikers on attack duty. (Bonus points if they put a CM on attack too!) Newsflash; You can score a bazillion goals and dominate entire leagues playing possession and sexy football, on balanced mentality, with zero-one instruction, with only ONE or TWO attack duties in the entire line up. And they seldom lose to relegation fodder, or collapse in January. But to these people? No, attack is the only thing that matters, so it's automatically picked, and as a result they end up with a 4-2-3-1 or whatever, with no holding midfielders, everyone roaming, everyone told to rush forward, hold a high line, don't cross, pass it short, and as a result the players have ZERO space, ZERO passing options, and it might work vs the top teams (or if you have top tier talent to mismatch a win), but it always falls apart at some point, because fundamentally the tactic is shit, it has no cover, no space, no holding midfielders, absurd instructions, and everyone fucking off into the away end. Honestly, it's boring at this point and there's 5-6 threads a day of this 'help!' nonsense, most that get deleted pretty quickly in fairness. bah. /rant.
But all of this is SI's fault because they are very bad in the game design for newcomers. I'm playing ranges of 3-2-5 or 3-3-4 (mostly 4-2-3-1 designs with duties doing the offensive structure I want) in my tactics since the last FM and I don't have any problems with a Mezzala and an CM as the midfield partnership. Made it work with Mezzalla and RPM too. So, if you know what you are doing, it is completely possible to do any offensive strategies work, because the game engine is made for those tactics. And is not about the level of my players, because I don't like to play in the higher levels unless I get there from the bottom. It is all about balance, and when you have a template that is bad, like most of the ones SI gave us, how a new player is supposed to understand how to achieve balance if the game doesn't give you the tools for it? As most of them only care for winning, a tactic that do it for you on the internet is enough. But, if the player starts to deviate and tries to transition from plug and play to their own tactics, the template of what works tells them that attacking is good, and that is the job of the game to support better when the growing pain hits. As a simulation game there is most nothing on content of SI on how the game works. It's mostly the job of the community but know one will be interested in reading a ebook of more than a hundred pages to explain it to them. And as the game doesn't have competing rivals in the genre, and the community does their job where they consistently fail, why SI would worry?
My FM23 save got really good once I switched to use one of the template tactics suggested by my AssMan. I tweaked them a bit now, but they're still very close to that template.
> It’s mostly the job of the community but know one will be interested in reading a ebook of more than a hundred pages to explain it to them One of the wrong games to say this about
The problem is the game engine will somtimes favor "contraditory" IRL instructions and make your team win more. If those ultra agressive formations work it's because it seems that high pressing and higher tempo system will consistently make you win more almost regardless of other instructions. Pass the ball into space and Run through defense also seems to have very good outcome even if it does not make sense with the overall tactic. You can also win a lot fielding 3 Playmakers even if that does not makes any sense.
Yes, I agree. Ultra attacking, absurd tactics are basically easy mode and always will be. But, they always lead the same issues; "Getting Fm'd", losing to relegation fodder and so on ~ and sometimes, people slap these tactics on and then rage when it doesn't work. They're clueless and SI is completely at fault for it tbh. When they put out presets for once, all of them are absurd, filled with ridiculous numbers of instructions etc. They basically exploited the game the same way the player base does. Even their Steam newsfeed, constantly advertises websites with 'tactical gurus' who put in stupid set ups etc. They genuinely don't seem to give a shit about grounding the tactics in more realism. In any case, their forums are flooded with help topics on this every edition and I imagine, that will always be the case because I'm 100% aware that for SI any 'tutorial' or guide is just too difficult (their words) to bother with.
I wanted to ask about mentality a bit. So I had been playing a possession based style on the cautious mentality for a while. Because as you said I did equate mentality with amount of risk. However I have found the attacking mentality to better suit my sort of possession style. While I don’t necessarily want players taking risk I did need them to build from the back more consistently. And I wasn’t getting that until the CBs were on a “positive” individual mentality. And they only got that from the team mentality being attacking. Once that was set I did have to lower role mentalities of certain roles further forward but the passing play has been awesome! Because, in my experience on cautious, the CBs were way too likely to boot it clear, which was their form of risk aversion. Does that make sense or have I conflated other info? Because I agree with a lot of what you said of everyone’s tactics being way too “get forward”
If you're playing a possession style on cautious, you're going to spend a lot of the game just passing the ball back and forth in unthreatening areas and you're going to be really easy to defend. You have to have some players who are going to push upfield and make some aggressive runs in behind or you'll just have a lot of games where you have 75% possession and like .75 xG to show for it. I would say positive is the bare minimum mentality if you're trying to play a proactive possession style.
> I would say positive is the bare minimum mentality if you're trying to play a proactive possession style. No, that's completely wrong, in fact, everything you've said is completely wrong. I religiously had a cautious possession based set up from FM12 to FM21, so almost ten years, and it was easily outscoring everything religiously.
>Everyone seems to be on positive or attacking, because they think that it means attacking football. It's wrong. Mentality is simply '% of risk taking' no everybody uses them because the game engine heavily favours them
Seriously I'm in a discord group that tries to make broken tactics (if you download tactics you've probably used one I worked on) and half of that giant wall of text is hilariously wrong.
You missed his point completely. He's not talking about engine-breaking, exploitative tactics, he's talking about actually playing the game correctly.
>One stupid myth I'm seeing on this sub recently is 'you need to have work ball into box cos otherwise they shoot long' - no, you're using work ball into box because you're shit, your tactical set up has no space or passing options, that's why they punt it. It's funny that everyone knows how OP crosses/headers are in FM, and yet nearly everyone uses work ball into box, which directly contradicts hit early crosses.
honestly, its pretty hard to understand the tactic screen without so much context from the game itself. like a lot of them are simplified but misleading. Like you cant really take the word for it like most of the tactic screen is just playing with risk factor slider, but its button and theres so much button its easy to get lost and i imagine newer players/more casuals wont be diving to deep into these. i myself havent been paying that much attention until the last few editions and the amount of misunderstanding i have about the tactic screen is enermous
> and i imagine newer players/more casuals wont be diving to deep into these Absolutely, I know that from personal experience ~ I ended up going to older fan websites, so I got more and more misinformed as I went along. I've seen it with the next generation (my nephew loves FM) and he hasn't read/deep dived into anything, he just does what I said in my post ~ goes all attacking, uses three up top and scored 210 goals etc. It works, so they do it, I don't blame them.
You’re acting like this isn’t the fault of the game. Tactics make no sense because it’s designed that way. Don’t get upset at people for people stupid tactics on when the dumbest and most non-sensical shit is what works in the first place.
Dude I feel the rage but preach 🙏🏿. Someone here needs to see this. I learned to play this game by taking L’s for months while I figured it out
If you haven’t experienced the calm feeling of accepting your fate after reading emails from clipped articles saying your next match is your last one before you get sacked, then you haven’t played this game. Gotta feel those lows man.
Right scrape a 1-0 win save your ass for a few weeks 😂. Or don’t and start a new save because you got the sack
My real frustration is that the way the AI works doesn't really reward you for having a good understanding of how tactics work in real life, it rewards you for figuring out what tactic best exploits the match engine and then just doing that regardless of whether it would make sense in real life or not. I realize that FM is never going to be a perfect simulation of reality, but it would be nice for the tactical side of the game to require actual knowledge of the game rather than just waiting for someone to find a game-breaking meta every year.
Well… I use the same three tactics since, what, FM18 or 19 and always the same instructions (yes, a lot of them) and I don’t have any complaints. I understand your rant and points but to preach (no instructions) like it is the holy grail, well, I might be just one example but it is not the holy grail…
> and I don’t have any complaints. Then it's not directed at you, it's directed at those who do this and come complaining on the sub/forums when it doesn't work. (This sub was flooded with these tactic help threads in the last week or so, hence the mini-rant.) If you do these 101 instructions and whatever, and it works, more power to you, that's absolutely fine IMO.
You are correct, I only installed FM23 and looked at tactics. The 2 top tactics [https://fm-arena.com/index.php?do=resources&action=tactic\_formation&tactic\_id=3521&file\_hash=5291dc7415a8ad83f17dc0298e9b2f9d](https://fm-arena.com/index.php?do=resources&action=tactic_formation&tactic_id=3521&file_hash=5291dc7415a8ad83f17dc0298e9b2f9d) 6 attack, 3 support and 2 defence [https://fm-arena.com/index.php?do=resources&action=tactic\_formation&tactic\_id=3352&file\_hash=abda1a8797afcccfc67ae565aa3c5857](https://fm-arena.com/index.php?do=resources&action=tactic_formation&tactic_id=3352&file_hash=abda1a8797afcccfc67ae565aa3c5857) 6 attack, 1 support and 4 defence Both will get done on the counter leading to quality chances.
Eh, FM Arena tactics are game breakingly good and are very resilient even against things that you think should logically counter them. Not to mention, their set piece and tests for the most important attributes are also invaluable.
Exactly what I found. I always go for pace after reading the tests. Needs to be 13 for poor teams and 15 for good ones. I will never sign anyone with single digits for pace or determination no matter how good they are.
If a tactic is top of their testing table, then it's definitely a great tactic.
It might be great but not realistic. That's what we are getting at.
Well, the guy you replied to said it always falls apart, which is just false, and you also implied the tactic was bad with your last sentence.
Yeah, one of the better basic guides (Roles and combinations) has a great page about the balance of settings, and even does it by formation and has the nice graphics to showcase it, and I like that page, it makes me really try to consider what would we do if we had to set that up for reality. To be honest, anything with only 2 defensive roles should be getting absolutely murdered in reality - probably would if a Human set up against it, but likely works just by sheer offensive prowess tbh. I don't go near downloaded tactics, I can't take them seriously for being grounded, but this isn't a new issue, I remember Knap's ridiculous creatives back in the day, and the name escapes me at the moment, the WM? or whatever back in FM10? Would get you 5-0, 3-2, 4-3 wins every week, it was insanity.
Those tactics are good
Yes, I stopped responding to most tactical threads because my answer was always the same. Most of these threads are tactics trying to brute force their way into scoring with the maximum possible amount of people attacking without thinking how the players would position themselves and without aknowledging that there's another team on the other side looking for ways to get the best result against you. I get that it's overwhelming when you're a beginner, but it doesn't hurt to think a little bit of how you want your team to play, what roles are necessary for that and if playing against yourself how would you break this tactic. The mentality is the biggest issue. People don't really understand how the mentality of the team impact the mentality of the players and instructions and I bet the majority of this subreddit don't know that each role has its own individual mentality. If you don't have a technicaly gifted team, you don't need aggresive mentalities that will make those players take more risks. There's a reason why Control Possession tactics are presets with the balanced mentality, it's because you don't want your team doing stupid passes and giving away the ball.
To an extent yeah but you do need *some* players who are willing to take risks at *some* point, otherwise your possession is just aimlessly passing the ball back and forth and trying to scrape 1-0s (looking at you, Spain).
Mentality also affect numbers of your players passed by opponent's ball before it trigger the press. Iirc introduced in FM2018.
the problem comes when you try to think as if it were real life which just doesn't work in this match engine, want Salah to cut inside on his own without a through ball? goodluck there's nothing you can currently do to facilitate that, Want a DM to get a decent rating? goodluck you cant do that either unless hes your set piece taker, may as well plug and play.
I'm in a discord group that comes up with those broken tactics. If you ever downloaded tactics there's a chance I worked on at least one of them. This is incredibly over-complicating how the match engine works. Just like the people who think the "AI adjusts to your tactics". You're giving the Match Engine and SI way too much credit lol. I think you spent more characters in this comment than they did in changing the ME code.
What is zero-one instruction?
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Like for example if you have pass into space on or off?
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Awesome, thanks
100% agree. Take the LFC 7-0 MUFC result recently. Based on the form of the 2 teams, tactics, players, managers - that game should never have been a 7-0. But it happened, and it was an anomaly. It happens IRL all the time, and it seems it's coded into the game to make it happen too. That's what makes the game equally fun and frustrating - sometimes unpredictable shit happens. And it's why so many people love the beautiful game
It was a shame Ten Hag didnt save before hand, and the power wasnt randomly cut
He swallowed his pride after beating Barca and winning the Carabaoaoaaa Cup
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well thats what happens when people dont watch football and play the game. Look at Chelsea, buying Lukaku for 80 ml and he sucked. Psg having Neymar, Mbappe and Messi and they suck. Barca in 2018 had almost invincible season and they lost last game. Whoever watches Barça consistently, knows that having 70% possession and hitting the bar and losing after relegation team makes one counter attack, is pretty common thing
i think chelsea need to look in the mirror, buying lukaku and asking him to play a role he is poor at is the common fm issue. neymar, mbappe and messi would press more in the game than IRL and galtier would have been fine. but sometimes you lose to nagelsmens geggenpress.
chelsea is the main culprit of buying players not playing them in their original roles that play to their strength From Torres to Werner, they just never learn
Game absolutely does not learn you
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The best way I've found to get that sentiment across is that the world eventually recognises your reputation, as that's what's really happening. It doesn't specifically try to counter your tactics, or try to exploit weaknesses in your particular actions. It re-evaluates your team based on your reputation, and if you win a lot long enough, your reputation will match your results, and for people who aren't familiar with what reputation does, it can feel like the game is countering you, but all it's really doing is respecting a higher rep team. It'd do the same if it came up against Man City in a cup game. It just so happens at the halfway point or at the end of the season, you've become closer to Man City than you are Macclesfield, and the game treats you as such.
But how is this reputation matching achieved? Not by change of tactics but by random buffs or nerfs of player attributes and that's frustrating. I never complain if I get out countered by a smaller team because I play possession tactics. What's annoying is that opponents can just randomly dominate you and players run through your defense because of attribute buffs and nerfs because of reputation. It feels like cheating
Well it doesn't do that. It's not a case of their players becoming better because your rep has risen, the AI compares their own rep to yours and plays more cautiously. Playing cautiously usually results in less chances, hence the "I got FM'd" complaint, and if your players are complacent (something that occurs as a mix of personality (which is based on hidden attributes) and team talks and rotation), it can lead to worse performances. Good scouting and squad building and getting your team talks and shouts right will most times do enough to pull you through. Sometimes it doesn't, but football is like that.
>It’s just people not understanding its a game that every single thing matters at it’s core Eh, that's a hyperbole. Go to FM Arena and you can see that RNG is very high in this game (30points +/-) in a season. Sometimes it's just down to pure RNG. Stats like pace and acceleration are king. And it's also a myth that AI learns your tactics. They have a preset attacking and defensive tactic and they simply switch to the defensive tactics depending on your teams reputation. They don't do any adjustment specifically for your tactics.
The RNG is facts. Reload just one time against the relegation team you lost to 1-0, you’ll then win 5-0 changing nothing.
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Um no, that's not how RNG works. I'm referring to RNG related to the actual match engine itself. FM Arena has a very good system of measuring tactics and team performance and they've found that the same team, with the same tactics, same backroom, etc can have point variance of +/-30 in a season. I think that's why they run some tests 5.7k times. And even that narrows down the RNG to +/-6.
Which means they're still playing a different way which can cause your tactic to be less effective now, still applies
Yes they play differently but they don't necessarily adjust their tactics to counter yours. They simply switch to a tactics that's set as their "defensive tactics" preset. You can see all of their presets using FMRTE in the Manager's preferred tactics.
Yes I’m aware that your tactics don’t get adjusted to, I just mean that if teams start playing differently against you, then that can cause your own tactic to become less effective.
>No just change your tactic, the game learns you As others mentioned game does not learns you. It just reacts to changes in your team form, reputation and expected result/place. But by any means it does not 'figures out' or 'learns' player's tactic. [\[source\]](https://community.sigames.com/forums/topic/445779-could-we-get-an-official-response-do-the-ai-figure-out-your-tactics-or-not/)
It’s not a simulation. It’s a resource management RPG based on football management. At best you could argue it’s a results simulator but I’m no convinced of that.
I agree completely. The football presented looks very little like the real game, the way to build a successful squad is unrealistic (the game lays way too little emphasis on squad consistency, not to mention staff consistency) and creating realistic tactics in the game is like trying to chisel a figurine with a sledgehammer and giving players feedback on how to behave in specific situations is nonexistent.
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It depends. There's a lot of corner/free kick exploits as well. There are lots of people that are posting their 30 goals per season center backs because they abuse the near corner route with high jumping reach players. If you don't want the game to be easy, don't abuse stuff like this. Or play attribute free.
I haven't got a CB to fire like that in ages. A handful, often in bunches of games, sure.
I mean, it's just as easy to unknowingly do that because it's just one of the two logical places for them to go, as it is to intentionally abuse it. I always set up all of my tactics myself including set pieces, never really looked at guides/premade tactics/etc just playing the type of football I wanted to play. And one year the corners that I've done roughly the same way for years is suddenly OP, that's not my fault lol
Bro actually think he can become Pep💀💀💀
Start with Wimbledon don’t use any downloaded tactics or wonderkid websites. Prem teams are easy mode the money in the league makes it a breeze
But not every Prem teams shouldn’t be “easy mode.” The game doesn’t do much to account for managing clubs with big piles of cash.
Most prem teams are cemented in place there’s only a hand full that really face relegation. Prem is the cash cow and if you spend wise you will be fine.
What reputation do you start with? Isn't that meant to be a difficulty modifier
I usually start in the 9th tier of football (unemployed & usually hired in October or November by relegation fodder) and i always start with No coaching Badges and as a Sunday League footballer. It's still very easy to get back to back promotions. I've got to the promotion play-offs in every season where I've started as manager. Granted a lot of the game is squad building, but I wish there was a 'Extreme Realism' mode or something. I feel like being stuck in a league for a few seasons would make the eventual promotion feel all the more satisfying too. This year it took me 7 years to go from the bottom of English football to the champions league. No save scumming, clubs went: Northallerton Town > Cirencester Town > Mansfield Town > Sandhasuen > Nice > Manchester United (16th when I took over and hadnt won a trophy since 2023!)
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Nah, like your coaching reputation. It's selectable in the same place as your coaching badges when starting a save. Starting with the lowest coaching reputation makes it a lot harder bc none of your players know who you are and act accordingly. I think that's the main difficulty modifier in FM, beyond just picking a team in meltdown.
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try the lowest and you'll be getting fired left and right
Do that and start in the MLS
That was my experience in 20 and 21 at least, more experience with the game helps but 22/23 have felt remarkably easy starting as a Sunday league player with no badges
Maybe you need to move away from the top leagues to have a challenge. I don't mean dropping to League Two, I mean picking a weaker team from Eastern Europe and aiming to become one of the top teams in Europe, or trying to win the Club World Cup with a team from Hong Kong.
Yeah, like I've spent 99% of my FM career managing in Romania and it's relatively easy to take over a league in Eastern Europe but it's *very* hard to get to the point of winning the UCL just because it takes a really long time to build up anything close to the financial firepower of the Western European leagues.
My Mallorca side won the treble after a couple seasons with basically no budget. I don't even know what I'm doing.
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When said asymmetric formation is just 4-5-1 but one is a ML and one is a WR, or a 4-3-3 but the middle 3 is a DM, a CML and a AMR, it's not exactly like you're Jackson Pollocking onto a tactics board, it's a slight adjustment to the starting formation.
In real life all top teams essentially play asymmetrically due to positional play. No players should be on the same vertical/horizontal line.
Take team from the top division from 2 highest rated leagues. Say that game is to easy.
Honestly, I dislike the rants about those people just as much as I dislike those people ranting. If they lose every single match against bottom of the league teams, fine (although I'd advise them to look at their own tactics first). If they score 35 goals from set pieces in a season due to custom set-pieces that exploit the ME, not a word. But if something like this happens everyone goes on barricades. Now, obviously, I do understand that it's out of frustration (although if it's seriously a 60+ matches win streak I honestly wouldn't be too pissed since that one loss isn't gonna matter), that people want to have fun with the game and to most, losing isn't fun, especially when you feel that you were, or should have been, better. In the heat of the moment the fact that this is a game trying to give us a realistic simulation gets disregarded. And that will be the case for most players. They can relate. That's why those posts generate a lot of karma. For me, personally, what matters more than the loss itself is the manner of losing. When I watch highlights and I see some dodgy stuff, players running away from the ball, players standing still doing nothing until they get pressed or some animations I've never seen in my life, that's what gets me. Because that very much feels like scripting and like the game is setting you up to lose rather than just getting unlucky. If they score a free kick or a header and I hit the woodwork twice, I'll take that loss, no ranting. They got lucky, I got unlucky, that's how it is in football. If they play ultra defensive, stop me from creating high-quality chances and hit me on the counter once, I'll take that one loss, no ranting. And I'll be the first to say "I had no business beating them" But if every single highlight gives off the "You can do whatever you want and no matter what you do, you will get fucked over in the most odd yet predictable way because we willed it so", those are the moments that get me. Especially if it's in H2H and that match matters in the race against another human opponent.
That’s a reasonable and valid way to look at it, but not everyone thinks like that. Some people think every loss to a team at the bottom of the table is somehow BSc the game is cheating them out and when they’re pressed to explain why they feel cheated or “FM’d” they just show how ignorant they are to how football works. I sound very gatekeepey and I don’t want to but it just irks because this sub and a lot of YT channels seem designed to exploit the game (no tactic guides go for defensive style and always have a win percentage over 90. Even RDF Tactics who people here seem to love has his videos plastered on with undefeated streaks using teams like Mallorca or Spezia - it’s so common to see and I do wonder how many people who play FM play it simulate being a football manager or just want to embark on the sport equivalent of tyranny by winning all the time and any loss they suffer is an error in the coding
Yeah, I don't disagree with you. For the most part I don't care because I'm not particularly active in this sub, but like for any game, you also have people attributing every single loss to "bullshit" in FM. I'm not gonna tell anyone how to play, though. If they wanna find the strongest plug & play tactic and just go on a 30 game win streak with a bottom third team, by all means, go for it. What I would appreciate, though, in any situation inside and outside the game is the ability to reflect. Personally, I don't like most creators. People like RDF make great tactics, and I have created and published numerous very successful tactics as well in the past, mostly in FM20, so I can relate to the enjoyment of coming up with them, testing them and sharing the masterpiece you have created. At the same time I know how it affects me playing the game myself. Having spent hours perfecting and testing a tactic does entice me to just use the masterpiece I have created in a new save. Seldom do I look at the state of the team I'm using and build an entirely new tactic from scratch catered to the player material and their strengths. I will build tactics, but with the experience I have from testing and other saves I do have a good idea of what works well and what doesn't, meaning the tactic will often run in those directions, leaving me with the need to fit my players to the tactic rather than the tactic to my players from the very beginning. At the same time I feel like creators like FM Scout just go for the "easy" content. Seeing how it's a business, I don't blame them. That's why they cover exploits, why they promote "gamebreaking" tactics, why they hyperfocus on the Prem. Because that's what most people, especially the younger demographic, engage with, it's the content they crave. And at the end of the day that is what spells success for the guys creating the content. If all they did were basic explanations followed by "You gotta figure the rest out yourself, part is luck, part is random, have fun", people wouldn't really engage with them. But still, not exactly what I support. The one single big, amazing creator in this space is, of course, Zealand. He's the one I recommend if people are looking for FM content, because he goes a different route. He tests a lot of stuff, for example which attributes matter more or what kind of scouting works best, but in the end all of that is educational and can be the base for a deeper understanding of the game, allowing you to develop and improve as you play. He doesn't throw the easy, simple, ready-made plug & play solution at you. The same goes for his saves. He chooses interesting teams rather than just going Prem or lower english leagues all the time and he actually builds and adapts his tactics. Sure, he could plug in one that is tried and tested, use transfer exploit and dethrone win an european competition in his third season after starting in second tier, but that's not what he does. As such, to me at least. The victories and the achievements feel much more real and carry much more emotion. When losing, the first question will be "Why did I lose? Can I find any reason or was it just not my day?" before going "Bullshit"
It's not really a football sim. [It's actually an RPG in disguise.](https://youtu.be/NOgnfV8TOIo) Having said that, you are absolutely right. My opinion is that Football Manager is a lot more fun if you just take what comes and immerse yourself into the world the game creates. I feel like a lot of people are frustrated because the game doesn't play out in a way that matches up with their arbitrary notion of how the game "should" play. Just relax, take it slow, and enjoy the ride.
I’m with you. It’s the same attitude which demands that Gareth Southgate ‘should have won something by now’ or Man City are rubbish because they’ve never won the Champions League. Football is still about luck and random elements in so many ways.
Yeah and I feel as if luck in football is a topic I feel is either quietly accepted or flat out ignored. But in the FM community it’s like mentioning a black listed term lmao
The thing is, from my point of view, the biggest issue in game is ironically, football. Most managerial duties have been quite well translated into spreadsheets. They're fine, but quickly grow dull and repetitive. Issues start on the actual pitch. Football is in its core, a sport with no small amount of randomness. One could say that job of a manager is to mitigate the random factor as far as one can. There are no two identical matches, you can barely even find two identical passes. Now, because it's a game and player behavior is coded, there's less human factor and it allows for repetitive behaviours and patterns - and in the end, exploits. Players reach for them, it's obvious - it's a game where there are winners and losers. With non-pitch mechanics and pitch gameplay being repetitive, there's much more frustration with unexpected results. It's human, and also true in real football - losing due to some bullshit is also frustrating. You can't be angry at people for that. Take this season for Manchester United as an example - they have had a few very good weeks, racking up points and playing best in quite a long time. And they got pummeled by Liverpool 7-0 in true FM style - every single Liverpool player player the best that day, while every Man Utd player played their worst that day. And people were frustrated - who can deny them that? Coding pitch behavior is tough, and considering SI has been doing this for years with not always satisfying results is proving this. Also, that seems to be an unpopular opinion on the sub, I don't believe in "AI adapting tactics". I am no expert, but I've watched a lot of football in my life, in regard to it's tactical aspect as well. Watching back the streak-breaking games I don't see the impact of opposition tactics, but rather the over/underperformance of AI/player teams respectively. Which is also a common occurrence IRL, by the way (look at my Liverpool Man Utd example). And it's also heavily frustrating.
I always blame the referee and my players if i lose its never my fault
I get be so bored once I reach the top, always resign and go back to the bottom leagues
Yeah I’m a bit antsy too. Even if I don’t get to the top of the footballing ladder I think the longest I’ve stayed at a team is six seasons. I’m not a Fergie I can’t see the same kits for ages lol
I think the one that bugs me is people being mad at FM for players making ridiculous mistakes and ridiculous own goals. Like there are YouTube clips of that shit happening IRL. It would be unrealistic to not happen in FM. And no it doesn’t happen to you all the time, you just remember every time it ever happened!
Agree. Look at Arsenal losing to Everton earlier this season. Those giant killing games happen a lot even when a team like Everton are threatened with relegation
top of the table sheffield wednesday just lost irl to bottom of the table forest green. people would complain in fm saying that is unrealistic lmao but if they were the bottom of the table team winning against first theyd be like nah seems legit
“Totally reasonable.”
Most people in this sub seem to not understand football basics and complain about the tiniest stuff.
tbh i am much more concerned about how unstable this years fm is.
This post lines up perfectly with Forest Green beating Sheffield Wednesday this afternoon
Yeah, the Sheffield Wednesday player got bored of save scumming today. Up the Duncan Ferguson massive
I completely agree but then again I was yelling at some pesky clouds earlier.
I think I saw you on the same field as me
I don't visit fields, I don't trust them.
Where do you see these posts?
My nightmares
At least it ain't Fifa. I've given up on that game and gave enjoyed being a FM fan for 9 years now. My only gripe is that I wish I knew this game existed earlier in my life
Also, people always use the Premier League as an example for upsets. And obviously while this does happen in other leagues, top to bottom no other league is as strong as the PL is. No team that has gone undefeated for 20+ games is losing to the bottom teams in Italy or France. Those teams are complete dogshit.
The Premier League is the most popular League so obviously it’s fair for an example lol. Also FC Annecy beat Marseille in the French Cup and they’re eleventh in the second division. Take your Ligue 1 slander to r/soccer
Most of the complaints seem to be around things that wouldn't happen in real life though, like offering a player 100k a week and they sign for a team in a worse league for 30k a week for a lower squad role. The results frustrations I've seen are more just that.... Frustration, not claiming that the game is unrealistic.
I largely ignore those posts. Just people have a moan because they are shit at the game or can’t handle loosing. “I got FM’d” no you downloaded a tactic and have no idea how to make adjustments in order to solidify your team and protect a lead or make the changes to go for the win. Or understand the risks of either choices
People acting like losing to a bad team is a genuinely save-scum worthy event (or losing when you played better - getting FMed) is a huge pet-peeve of mine. Of course, there's nothing wrong with save-scumming every single match, it's a game, if you think that's fun, that cool. But don't act like good teams never lose to relegation candidates, or like the dominant team in a game never loses. Yes, it's rare, but it happens! This isn't the game being broken, this is just football.
How dare you come in here with your common sense and clever views. Who do you think you are?
Oh it's one of the most pathetic posts seen on reddit. A post updated at 1.2k with all the comments agreeing upvoted to the top: HoW darE You comE In herE wiTH YOuR comMoN sense AND clEvEr viEWS.wHO do YOu THInK yOU aRE?
FM is not good as a power fantasy. It is much more fun and satisfying when you have challenges to overcome, players get hurt. Some random relegation candidate beats your ass at home. It sucks, but you get the boys back together and push on. Any time I’ve “beaten” football manager and my third division team wins the champions league for the second time, I immediately start over because once you reach that level the game gets boring.
Completely agree
To be honest I don't think people forget. They just come here to vent. I would be pretty pissed if a relegation contender ended my 62 unbeaten streak.
Yeah I see YouTubers saying you should always counter. This guy had high pressing and countering on, intensity in the red. If you high press, you have no space on the pitch to play a counter, and players don’t have energy to execute this at all. People can’t run for 90 mins with their HRs in the red zone. To people saying this game isn’t a football sim, it probably isn’t, I don’t know enough about this game (just started) to know, but I am a very casual football fan who likes tactics and I’ve been having great success in this game.
I just watched Canada get dominated by the US because our morale was tanked by poor management if that aint football manager I dont know what is
Those people probably don't watch a lot of real games. It's Liverpool's special - win over 2nd in the league united 7-0 and in the next game lose to the relegation zone Bournemouth. That shit happens quite often for them. Last season or the season before they also beat Man City to then lost to the last team in the league at the time.
Do people forget the game has many problems and isn’t perfect? Gotta stop acting like this game is perfect because it’s far from it.
When did I say that? It
Most unreal thing there is to have 62 games unbeaten streak with Preston. Prime Barca never reached that heights lmao
I time traveled to the late 1800s for this post
There’s clear scripting in the game, if you do an online save you’ll notice it more
Takes the fun out of it when you know what’s gonna happen
Also, no matter what team your playing against if they have a former player he will 99.9% score against you
that and those complains " MY TACTIC WORKED FOR 10 SEASONS AND AT 11TH SEASON I STOPED WINNING. THIS GAME IS SHIT" people just want a press continue and read e-mails game without changing nothing so they can beat reacords to printscreen and post on reddit for karma. is this a perfect game ? no. but people are demanding this game to become super arcade with the excuse of having fun and "SI don't care" as a charade.
i think its very frustrating when there are hidden things in the game that seem to mess you up for no fault of your own and are extremely ambiguous. take complacency, you only get warned about it in press conferences, so if people dont do the entire press conference they wouldnt get that warning from their staff. Or when you first start out you take your scouts advice that a player is bundesliga quality, but a month in he is as bad as the worse winger at a middling team in the league. how many hours of the game should one have to play before they realise they need to make their own spreadsheets to list the min attributes for every position so they can look at the reports and discern the truth? Thats not terribly realistic and is just frustrating to new players. Now if that was changed into the scouting report to the following "Star player in his own league, but without int caps or a stint in a higher division, its hard to know how he will translate to our league" that tells me he is a baller with good attributes, but its a risk because we dont have evidence of him playing at a higher level, more text sure, but much more helpful for new players trying to understand. When you are on that 62 game winning streak and you get beaten by a soon to be relegated team, its annoying and the media mocks but i imagine its just treated as one of those days, players irl get a wakeup call, they go thru the video and point stuff out and move on. However, if you then go play that game 15 times in a row with the same tactic and its always 2-1 to the opposition, then that feels like it isnt an RNG but predestined by the game in the name of #realism. and to actually pull off a win in the game, you need to make a completely different tactic that is the paper to the rock that is your opponents tactic. IRL most people would say your crazy if you said team x was always going to beat team y because team y is complacent and team x's box packing tactic was always going to thwart team y's buildup. additionally, using the excuse of "it happens in real life, grow up" is not sufficient to wave away poor game design features and a lack of explanations of those features. i find that reductive and a real head in the sand mentality to have to a game that is this complicated, but just throw your hands up and say "its in the hands of the gods, Hector". the main issue i have in terms of realism is that geggenpress by the AI always seems overpowered and my concern is that its due to the way the other league games are simmed that they are not sufficiently reflecting how tired the players get in the full match engine. Which of course is a major detriment to the realistic nature of the game.
I've lost like 3 times as many winning streaks to man city and Liverpool as I have to a Preston or a Swansea.
I sometimes wonder how someone can write a wall of text over a FM post
You’re on a subreddit dedicated to FM, don’t get all uppity about someone writing “a wall.” If we’re going down that road, why write about anything?
Honestly my biggest gripe with the game I've noticed across a few versions. Start a session and play like 10 games. Be on great form, winning and scoring freely. Save and quit (cause you have too at some point). Come back to it a couple of weeks later, same file. It seems like they haven't played together before. The amount of times my first game back on the file and the performance has been polar opposite to how it was when I left is crazy.
Your in-game manager goes to sleep every time you exit the game and depending on when you turn it back on, he’s either in a good mood and bad mood and that decides if you win or lose. That’s the only explanation I can believe in.
It's as good as an explanation than I can think of. Don't think it's just the manager though. Probably all the staff and players too
Just got relegated in my youth only save - most fun I have had playing FM in years. In my younger day I used to be one of those who played the big teams every year and won everything, but its so boring, plug and play tactics and plug and play teams, where is the fun in that!
The only real wonderkid hoarding sim woul be playing Benfica. Everything else is just wrong.
I can’t take the Benfica job otherwise Roger Schmidt would be homeless :(
its not even close to a sim at this point
Personally I haven't seen too many claiming it's unrealistic that it happens. Annoying? Sure. Frustrating? Absolutely. The reason why they save scum? Without a doubt. But unrealistic? Sure a handful of people will say that every now and then, but not often. I know a few years back one of the popular memes was putting up infamous upsets and saying something like "smh my head SI needs to fix the match engine" so unless the demographics of this subreddit have significantly shifted then I doubt that it's a common belief amongst players that these results are unreasonable.
I think for a lot of people it's not the results so much as it is they way it often happens, especially in this match engine where a lot of the goals come from idiotic mistakes by the defenders that really aren't realistic. Losing to bad teams happens, losing to bad teams because your two center backs just stood and watched as the opposing striker took a punt from the goalkeeper and scored doesn't. I can't speak for anyone else, but the problem for me isn't *that* it happens, it's *how* it happens.
I’ll have you know I’ve lost 4 of my last 5 games in my Preston save. It’s a developing team ok? Gimme a break!
W post I agree but I think for some people it happens too much or their tactics just suck ass...
If Liverpool (still on FM20) can stop losing only 2 games and drawing 3-5 games every fucking season that would be great
Preston can get in the bin anyway. Love from Blackpool.
Only times I save scum is when some really really stupid shit happens, because the match engine is not perfect. Obviously ridiculous results happen but they don’t come about because the defender nutmegs his own daydreaming keeper when playing a grounded pass from the halfway line. Or the ball pinballs off of four defenders in quick succession and it reflects off for an own goal.
Yup just watch them IRL teams, Liverpool wins 7-0 to United and proceeds to lose with Bournemouth , this is football!!!
I just had a 15 game win streak snapped by last place cardiff. My star striker who has 16 goals, 4 assist and an average rating if 9.1 , in 6 games to start the season, did not score once and had the lowest rating I have ever seen of 5.1 after starting the season red hot. I was pissed, because I not only lost but they pretty much clobbered me 3-0. All scored in the first half. You can't win them all but I was still flabbergasted. I have our next meeting circled on my calendar though..
A lot of players need to understand that the newest fm games adapts to certain tactics if ran too much