FM, It's Almost Over

I have been a keen player of FM since 2006. I'd rank it as my favourite game, but there comes a point when the end is close. And that is now, unless something drastic happens.

Apparently, you become an expert at something with 10,000 hours practice. I know for a fact I've got well over 3,000 hours total gameplay over the years. While I know that compared to many on this forum, it doesn't seem like a lot, for the average person it's huge.

I can say for a fact: I have never ever had a successful, long term career in FM. Not ONCE. But believe me, I have tried everything. I've created my own tactics and used other people's, I created my training schedules and used other peoples, I've signed some good players, and also gone by others' recommendations.

My best achievement was winning the SPL with Celtic one year. Yeah, big deal.

Who knows, perhaps I really am the worst player of all time, but I really doubt it. Sports Interactive can't put a realistic match engine together. Well over ten years, they still haven't done it. Shay Given still just stands there in a one on one situation and lets the ball get passed into the net, Jack Wilshere still decides to try an elaborate cross field pass to nobody when there's a though ball on.

However this thread is more than just a rant about the sh*tty match engine. The bottom line is this: Football Manager is a game, and if you let Jose Mourinho play it, the best manager in real life, he'll probably fail. (That would be a great idea for a series "Real Managers Play Football Manager"

It's got absolutely nothing to do with real life management, not because of options available or the tactical options, but because once you've inputted them, they don't turn out like they would in real life.

That's the issue. I'm a part time football coach in real life, and at half time you can tell your team to do something, or motivate a player. In FM, you can in theory do the same things, but the results differ hugely.

I know there's a limit to how far you can go with realism, but I think A LOT more can be done.

Having said all that, I must be doing something wrong. Successful stories appear on this site every day, where many trophies are won. I have never had any long term success, and things always seem to get harder the longer my career goes on.

I'm not really looking for tips e.g play more defensive, use counter after goals. To be honest, I'm not entirely sure what I'll get out of this, because everything I've tried so far has failed. The same thing happens over and over again, and it gets worse as my careers go on.

Thanks for reading my essay.

I wouldn't let that bother you mate, Most of the really successful ones have proberly just done endless do-over games to get their trophy collection to such a magnitude. I enjoy reading stories with managers who come up short time and again because I find it much more enjoyable as I know it's genuine, and when they do eventually win a title or cup it is truly deserved.

You've been playing the wrong game for all these years, maybe time to try Championship Manager? I hear its easier.

I won't buy another FM. It's very samey and once you've become successful and can repeat it, it's very boring.

Another problem is the people at SI don't seem to listen. If you try to point out their game is not working how it should you get slated. If you point out the guru's of the tactics and training forum are over complicating the game with unnecessary stuff to look good the mods don't like it despite the fact you can prove it. They make money and that's an end of it.

So sadly I will not be giving SI any more of my hard earned money. Shame it's ended like this for me but everything ends.

A lot of people look at management games in the wrong way. It's not a representation of football, it's a glorified table top RPG. I know fuck all about football. I regularly watch Icelandic football and follow Brighton as much as I can be fucked, but I mean I haven't watched a Premier League match since I don't know. The last time my dad talked me into watching Southampton at home which would've been the game where Man Utd relegated them the first time.

Yet I think I do pretty well at Football Manager because ultimately it's not really about football, it's a number game. All you need to know are which stats are good for each position and which formations work well with the match engine. That's pretty much it, it's just a numbers game. Once you've put everything down, it basically turns into a table top RPG. The only difference is the dice rolls are hidden, there are a billion different equations and they're all super complicated. You'll get lucky and unlucky rolls but if you know how the game works, you'll average out on top.

That's how you have to play it really. Unless you want to play as Man City, you can't play it like real football. The benefit you get from splashing all your money on the most famous of players is minimal. You usually won't have the resources to buy a full team that way and it's always better to have a team of average players than a team of below average players with one super-star.

I guess that's my advice really. You should try playing the game differently. I think the best way to do that is taking yourself completely out of your comfort zone. If you try managing in a country where you can barely even pronounce the players names, you'll start looking at less like football and more like a game. Scandinavia and Asia are generally pretty good for that. Apart from that, you could try playing a table top game. I came to this realisation the first time I played a table top RPG. Everything was basically about working around the rules of the game to get to the best possible outcome, the same way FM is.