Well I haven't been on FML for some time. Something else occupies all of my waking time now as well as my sleeping thoughts.
This game is Minecraft.
I'd say it ranks in the top 5 games i've ever played and it's like £8 or something. Go buy it.
http://minecraft.net/
(don't bother with the free version, it's not the same)
Imagine as a child someone told you if you went digging in your garden, you'd find loads of fucking awesome lego. Like LOADS of it and awesome caves, and with this lego you can build whatever you want. This is Minecraft.
I risked showing it to the girlfriend, who is now also addicted to it. I've turned her into a complete geek.
I have had quite a stressfull week, I burnt my bloody house down the other day and spent many hours rebuilding it. THEN I burnt down my entire estate, I came up from a mining trip to find everything which I had spent a week building, in flames. I felt physically sick but once again I rebuilt.
To make this vaguely football related, i'm currently building Elland Road. It's gonna be awesome.
Anyway, best go. I need to make sure the lava waterfall doesn't burn down my treehouse again, i'm keeping an eye on it while building my 2nd space invader above a nearby mountain.
Thursday 14 October 2010
Wednesday 29 September 2010
Columbia
So i'm off work this week, having my first sick day in nearly 3 years! Noticed an email in my inbox about the beta containing the new FM11 ME stuff. I'm undecided if I am going to buy FM11 this year as i'm still quite enjoying FM10 and i'm involved in a nice network game at the moment. But I was intrigued to see what the new graphics, stadium stuff and animations looked like so I decided to give it a download.
Surprisingly I still have a team (barely) which had finished 2nd in the 3rd tier of the OFA. It's interesting to note that without any involvement from me for about 4 months and a stadium on 0% my team has continued just fine and amassed a £10.8m balance.
Anyhow seen as i'm getting bored of nothing to moan about I figured if I created a team I could get involved with stuff on the forums again. To avoid me inevitably becoming annoyed I decided to take a new route and sign an all Columbian team.
The team so far is bloody awful so I wont become annoyed as I will deserve to lose most games. I don't intend to play many live matches, so i'm going to play it a bit like traditional fantasy football.
To add to the crazy i'm going to play 4-4-2. I've created a pretty funky 4-4-2 on FM10 so i'm not sure how it will translate into the new ME but it's working pretty well on there.
Surprisingly I still have a team (barely) which had finished 2nd in the 3rd tier of the OFA. It's interesting to note that without any involvement from me for about 4 months and a stadium on 0% my team has continued just fine and amassed a £10.8m balance.
Anyhow seen as i'm getting bored of nothing to moan about I figured if I created a team I could get involved with stuff on the forums again. To avoid me inevitably becoming annoyed I decided to take a new route and sign an all Columbian team.
The team so far is bloody awful so I wont become annoyed as I will deserve to lose most games. I don't intend to play many live matches, so i'm going to play it a bit like traditional fantasy football.
To add to the crazy i'm going to play 4-4-2. I've created a pretty funky 4-4-2 on FM10 so i'm not sure how it will translate into the new ME but it's working pretty well on there.
Saturday 18 September 2010
Standing in the Way of Control
There's an interesting post on the forums at the moment here It links to Civilization creator Sid Meier speaking at a games development conference. He's a pretty clever chap responsible for many great games down the years and he makes some wonderful points which are ever so pertinent to FML.
Introduction to the game
He speaks about how important the first 15 minutes of a game are for the player stating they should be compelling and fun. It should make the player feel comfortable in the world and introduce them to loads of cool stuff and plant the seed that even cooler stuff is going to happen later on.
FML scores 0/10 on this front. It's a case of enter the Gameworld, read a few introductory text screens and pick some very poor players. Then you get taken to the match selector to play a CPU team. Once that is done then you might be waiting around for 15 days never mind 15 minutes for the season to kick off!
The player is not only left feeling slightly bewildered, but they have no good players, no specific short term goal or challenge and nothing else to do for a long period of time.
If FML had a proper PvE environment then this wouldn't be so much of an issue because a player could jump into that instead.
You see this 15 minute rule in so many games these days, how many racing games give you a super car fully kitted out with a big turbo and the best go faster stripes around at the start? You have a bit of a race before being dumped in a Fiat Punto but at least you know what you have to look forward to eh. You see it in other games too, the first example which comes to mind is a game I tried on the 360 last week which is Prototype. You start the game fully loaded with all your powers and abilities before regressing back to the start.
I suppose you could apply this to FML if you gave it some thought. Give a new manager Buckton Titans to manage for a day. Let them play in a proper PvE league and smash everyone in sight, hell let them play real players but not effect ranking points. Let them manage the England team for a week or so, whatever, think outside the box! Give them something fun and easy to do once they join up. Playing CPU challenges does not fall into the fun category ;)
Randomness
Sid Meier also speaks about how "acts of randomness need to be treated with a great deal of care" and that the player wants to be in control. If something is perceived to be random then paranoia strikes and the player looks for the worse possible explanation as to why something happened.
He goes on to speak about how a player is willing to accept something good happening against the odds as being completely normal. The psychology of the player is that they used a great strategy or they were cleverer. But conversely if something bad happens then the game is broken, something is wrong the game is cheating!
He says it is Important the player understands why something happens and how to prevent it from happening next time.
The above few paragraphs are some of the biggest problems you have with FML! The whole damn thing feels random and you have no bleeding clue what the hell is going on or why. Even after playing FML for so long I can give literally no explanation as to why I could have an appalling team smashing every team in sight only to sign a handful of better players and not be able to win a single game. I suppose I am guilty of accepting the good times as my own ability but blaming anything that goes wrong on the game being broken. But what else should I blame, I can see literally NO logical or rational explanation as to what is happening - therefore I blame the game.
I think first off to resolve this more transparency is needed about how certain aspects of the game work. It often seems that no one actually knows how certain FML specific things interact with the ME and I mean no one at SI !
Example, on my FM10 game my squad is very well blended together so much so "they are willing to die for each other" Now I read this and it's pretty clear what it means! So on FML, does this feature even EXIST ? Is there a hidden team blend rating like the FM series ? I've asked before, I don't know ?? Who does ? Does signing lots of players have a negative effect ??
Another example, players who can't speak the native language have communication problems on the pitch on FM. Surely this can't be in FML can it ? That would make no sense at all, but is it in ? We just don't know... The ME on FML has so much weird shit happening that it wouldn't surprise me if it still was.
Effect of changing tactics ? Time taken for squad to gel ?
I could reel of a couple of dozen similar questions to that which i've never found out the answer to on FML which is common knowledge and explained in game on FM. Sometimes some of these questions are put to Paul C and he doesn't seem to know either! I'd suggest a Q&A where some of these queries are answered.
I suppose they may as well add in the assistant feedback from FM10 too. It's not great, it's not THAT useful but it's something and some of the points can be of interest on occasion. But again, many of the points relate to how a player is used to playing and language issues and the like, the things we don't even know are in FML! But it does provide some useful information which you can adjust your tactics to, like explaining your long passes are not connecting or opposition instruction suggestions. It's useful if you are not very good at watching the game or just not watching it at all. I usually have a look over it when i'm in a bad patch in a game and all my players are performing well with no confidence issues. Sometimes I make a change based on the advise.
The odds
I've spoken about this a lot myself and in fact mentioned it in my last post. But players struggle to accept defeat against the odds, especially me. Sid talks about how when they displayed odds in game for example 3/1 players would just see the 3 and think that because they had the much bigger number they would always win. It's easy to forget that 1 time out of 4 the other team would win.
I think it would be beneficial to hide club reputation and the opposition average ability screen from anyone except the manager of that club. I've spoken about transparency earlier but I just don't think these are needed! You can easily look at opposition players and an opposition squad and get a feel about how good a team is. You don't need to be an experienced player to understand someone worth £5m is going to be better than someone worth £500k.
This would help alleviate some of the stress of when you are losing badly, you're looking for an explanation and you see the opposition club has an average ability of 12 while yours is 15. You see the bigger number and straight away move onto the game is broken theory. Reputation is probably less important but you could just change it to the ranking banding, so elite club, bronze club etc.
Anyhow, i'm probably the point where i've wrote so much no one is reading so i'll stop for now
Introduction to the game
He speaks about how important the first 15 minutes of a game are for the player stating they should be compelling and fun. It should make the player feel comfortable in the world and introduce them to loads of cool stuff and plant the seed that even cooler stuff is going to happen later on.
FML scores 0/10 on this front. It's a case of enter the Gameworld, read a few introductory text screens and pick some very poor players. Then you get taken to the match selector to play a CPU team. Once that is done then you might be waiting around for 15 days never mind 15 minutes for the season to kick off!
The player is not only left feeling slightly bewildered, but they have no good players, no specific short term goal or challenge and nothing else to do for a long period of time.
If FML had a proper PvE environment then this wouldn't be so much of an issue because a player could jump into that instead.
You see this 15 minute rule in so many games these days, how many racing games give you a super car fully kitted out with a big turbo and the best go faster stripes around at the start? You have a bit of a race before being dumped in a Fiat Punto but at least you know what you have to look forward to eh. You see it in other games too, the first example which comes to mind is a game I tried on the 360 last week which is Prototype. You start the game fully loaded with all your powers and abilities before regressing back to the start.
I suppose you could apply this to FML if you gave it some thought. Give a new manager Buckton Titans to manage for a day. Let them play in a proper PvE league and smash everyone in sight, hell let them play real players but not effect ranking points. Let them manage the England team for a week or so, whatever, think outside the box! Give them something fun and easy to do once they join up. Playing CPU challenges does not fall into the fun category ;)
Randomness
Sid Meier also speaks about how "acts of randomness need to be treated with a great deal of care" and that the player wants to be in control. If something is perceived to be random then paranoia strikes and the player looks for the worse possible explanation as to why something happened.
He goes on to speak about how a player is willing to accept something good happening against the odds as being completely normal. The psychology of the player is that they used a great strategy or they were cleverer. But conversely if something bad happens then the game is broken, something is wrong the game is cheating!
He says it is Important the player understands why something happens and how to prevent it from happening next time.
The above few paragraphs are some of the biggest problems you have with FML! The whole damn thing feels random and you have no bleeding clue what the hell is going on or why. Even after playing FML for so long I can give literally no explanation as to why I could have an appalling team smashing every team in sight only to sign a handful of better players and not be able to win a single game. I suppose I am guilty of accepting the good times as my own ability but blaming anything that goes wrong on the game being broken. But what else should I blame, I can see literally NO logical or rational explanation as to what is happening - therefore I blame the game.
I think first off to resolve this more transparency is needed about how certain aspects of the game work. It often seems that no one actually knows how certain FML specific things interact with the ME and I mean no one at SI !
Example, on my FM10 game my squad is very well blended together so much so "they are willing to die for each other" Now I read this and it's pretty clear what it means! So on FML, does this feature even EXIST ? Is there a hidden team blend rating like the FM series ? I've asked before, I don't know ?? Who does ? Does signing lots of players have a negative effect ??
Another example, players who can't speak the native language have communication problems on the pitch on FM. Surely this can't be in FML can it ? That would make no sense at all, but is it in ? We just don't know... The ME on FML has so much weird shit happening that it wouldn't surprise me if it still was.
Effect of changing tactics ? Time taken for squad to gel ?
I could reel of a couple of dozen similar questions to that which i've never found out the answer to on FML which is common knowledge and explained in game on FM. Sometimes some of these questions are put to Paul C and he doesn't seem to know either! I'd suggest a Q&A where some of these queries are answered.
I suppose they may as well add in the assistant feedback from FM10 too. It's not great, it's not THAT useful but it's something and some of the points can be of interest on occasion. But again, many of the points relate to how a player is used to playing and language issues and the like, the things we don't even know are in FML! But it does provide some useful information which you can adjust your tactics to, like explaining your long passes are not connecting or opposition instruction suggestions. It's useful if you are not very good at watching the game or just not watching it at all. I usually have a look over it when i'm in a bad patch in a game and all my players are performing well with no confidence issues. Sometimes I make a change based on the advise.
The odds
I've spoken about this a lot myself and in fact mentioned it in my last post. But players struggle to accept defeat against the odds, especially me. Sid talks about how when they displayed odds in game for example 3/1 players would just see the 3 and think that because they had the much bigger number they would always win. It's easy to forget that 1 time out of 4 the other team would win.
I think it would be beneficial to hide club reputation and the opposition average ability screen from anyone except the manager of that club. I've spoken about transparency earlier but I just don't think these are needed! You can easily look at opposition players and an opposition squad and get a feel about how good a team is. You don't need to be an experienced player to understand someone worth £5m is going to be better than someone worth £500k.
This would help alleviate some of the stress of when you are losing badly, you're looking for an explanation and you see the opposition club has an average ability of 12 while yours is 15. You see the bigger number and straight away move onto the game is broken theory. Reputation is probably less important but you could just change it to the ranking banding, so elite club, bronze club etc.
Anyhow, i'm probably the point where i've wrote so much no one is reading so i'll stop for now
Friday 17 September 2010
Otherside
Phone rings the other day....
"We have just had a baby on the Sims, what should we call it?"
"Franco" I suggest with enthusiasm
"Are you playing Football Manager??!"
Rumbled again.
Been playing some FM10 to pass the time these days. Although it's running an older version of the ME than FML it just seems to work so much better, presumably because the AI teams are fielding teams which represent a professional team rather than the weird stuff you get on FML.
Like, youth players are terrible, older players seem to play just fine and the 433 seems far less effective. My 35 wins in a row record was foiled by a 2 legged cup tie where I was 4-0 up, so a few things are the same ;) It's easy to see why SI might be scratching their heads sometimes when it all works so well on their flagship game.
The biggest difference is the effect or knocks, or rather the lack of an effect they have. If a player receives a knock you are often hard pushed to even work out which player it is because they lose so little condition. On FML a knock is usually the end of a game for a player but on FM10 they lose about 5-10% condition more often than not!
Secondly there's far far less injuries in matches. I get about 1 injury every 10 games that results in a player having to leave the field. It just feels more like what you would expect to see in a real football game rather than "ffs not again" as your 4th player goes off injured on FML.
Another thing came to mind too which is the perception of whether you should win a game or not. I was losing to Birmingham and I could feel myself becoming annoyed thinking "who the fuck are Birmingham and how dare they score against me!!" I found myself clicking on them trying to find out what their average squad ability was like you would find in FML. Except there is nowhere to see this, then I thought, well it is 2015, I actually have no idea how good they are other than their league position. Rage pacified because I was no longer sure if I should be expecting to win the game or not.
It does make me wonder if perhaps the ability of opposition teams should actually be hidden on FML so you can work it out for yourself by actually looking at the players. Ignorance is bliss and all that.
Oh and on FM10 you still get the "red arrows of doom" on young players just like you do on FML. It's not a problem on FM10 either, it's completely normal!
I see team talks are now coming to FML which I wouldn't really welcome. I remember when team talks were being discussed before they came into normal FM a few years back. My comment at the time was, unless there was literally hundreds of different things you could say, they would be pointless and annoying. Five years on there's still about 5 options and it is pointless and annoying. Fortunately on FM you can get your assistant to do the talk for you.
On FML you will have to do it because if your opposition is using them wisely then you are going to disadvantage yourself and potentially lose games because of it. The optimal talks don't even make sense half the time anyway so any experienced FM'ers are instantly going to have an advantage of knowing what to say and when.
I'm not really missing FML much at all and I think it would be difficult for me to return when i'm not available to play as much as I was a year ago. If they removed FAs completely and made everything ad hoc reputation based league structures then that would still appeal to me. So you could just join up to an official weekend league when you are around or a week long league then have a week off. That would be pretty cool and mean you'd have something to do when online and wouldn't miss stuff when you were offline. But that aint going to happen is it !
"We have just had a baby on the Sims, what should we call it?"
"Franco" I suggest with enthusiasm
"Are you playing Football Manager??!"
Rumbled again.
Been playing some FM10 to pass the time these days. Although it's running an older version of the ME than FML it just seems to work so much better, presumably because the AI teams are fielding teams which represent a professional team rather than the weird stuff you get on FML.
Like, youth players are terrible, older players seem to play just fine and the 433 seems far less effective. My 35 wins in a row record was foiled by a 2 legged cup tie where I was 4-0 up, so a few things are the same ;) It's easy to see why SI might be scratching their heads sometimes when it all works so well on their flagship game.
The biggest difference is the effect or knocks, or rather the lack of an effect they have. If a player receives a knock you are often hard pushed to even work out which player it is because they lose so little condition. On FML a knock is usually the end of a game for a player but on FM10 they lose about 5-10% condition more often than not!
Secondly there's far far less injuries in matches. I get about 1 injury every 10 games that results in a player having to leave the field. It just feels more like what you would expect to see in a real football game rather than "ffs not again" as your 4th player goes off injured on FML.
Another thing came to mind too which is the perception of whether you should win a game or not. I was losing to Birmingham and I could feel myself becoming annoyed thinking "who the fuck are Birmingham and how dare they score against me!!" I found myself clicking on them trying to find out what their average squad ability was like you would find in FML. Except there is nowhere to see this, then I thought, well it is 2015, I actually have no idea how good they are other than their league position. Rage pacified because I was no longer sure if I should be expecting to win the game or not.
It does make me wonder if perhaps the ability of opposition teams should actually be hidden on FML so you can work it out for yourself by actually looking at the players. Ignorance is bliss and all that.
Oh and on FM10 you still get the "red arrows of doom" on young players just like you do on FML. It's not a problem on FM10 either, it's completely normal!
I see team talks are now coming to FML which I wouldn't really welcome. I remember when team talks were being discussed before they came into normal FM a few years back. My comment at the time was, unless there was literally hundreds of different things you could say, they would be pointless and annoying. Five years on there's still about 5 options and it is pointless and annoying. Fortunately on FM you can get your assistant to do the talk for you.
On FML you will have to do it because if your opposition is using them wisely then you are going to disadvantage yourself and potentially lose games because of it. The optimal talks don't even make sense half the time anyway so any experienced FM'ers are instantly going to have an advantage of knowing what to say and when.
I'm not really missing FML much at all and I think it would be difficult for me to return when i'm not available to play as much as I was a year ago. If they removed FAs completely and made everything ad hoc reputation based league structures then that would still appeal to me. So you could just join up to an official weekend league when you are around or a week long league then have a week off. That would be pretty cool and mean you'd have something to do when online and wouldn't miss stuff when you were offline. But that aint going to happen is it !
Wednesday 18 August 2010
White Flag.
Subscription cancelled.
Fuck this game, fuck the shitty match engine, fuck it up the arse, fuck everyone involved with it, i'm done. The game is horrifically broken.
Form is a complete fucking joke. Just because I lost a few games toward the end of last season and despite replacing much of my squad, why does this mean I have to start the next season in bad form ?
Why, despite having the best squad in the division in terms of ability can I not win a single game ? Why ? All of my players are prime match engine hackers, they are better than any other team in the division. My tactics are perfectly set up to exploit all the ME holes, yet I STILL CANT FUCKING WIN A GAME DUE TO THIS BULLSHIT FORM CRAP.
I've had 6 CCCS, i've had 60% possession, he scores with 1st shot on goal. He scores with 2nd shot on goal. I continue to dominate the game, it's 2-2. He's down to 10 men, OF FUCKING COURSE HE SCORES THE WINNER with his 3rd shot on goal.
I'm playing an all youth team with an average ability of 11. Most of his players don't have more than few attributes in double figures, yet he totally destroys me ? How on earth is this football ? What's changed from last season ? I replaced a load of 16k AF players, who won the division, with good players worth money?
Every game is freak series of events where I dominate the game and get screwed over by something totally bizarre. I've seen this in beta where I went from finishing 2nd in Premier League to relegation spots in the Championship in the space of 2 weeks. Right. Ok. That's not random is it ? Nope, not at all.
Like it's going to get any better with the new ME changes. We were complaining about this youth team crap in DECEMBER, NINE MONTHS ago. Why wasn't it fixed then ? How much longer before the new ME stuff is released ? It will no doubt still be broken in some new exciting way.
The 433 thing was well known before the reset too, it was moaned about on the beta forums quite a lot but again, "there's nothing to see here, move along"
There's absolutely nothing of interest in development for the game as far as I can see either. Youth academies are bollocks, I don't give a shit what they do with them, I have absolutely no interest in this whatsoever.
What else is there in the pipeline... Cheating, Market Value and Moderation apparently. Great, that's really going to give me something else to do isn't it.
The game is full of half arsed, half finished features like reward points, stadiums and CPU challenges which add absolutely sweet fuck all to the game.
Develop _things to do_ No one gives a crap about how Market Value is calculated. It's not even as though you can play in fun competitions due to this minor/major form rubbish which I have also been moaning about for probably going on 18 months now. I'm pretty sure the reason I started this blog was partially down to that.
I feel sorry for Ov in a way because he's spent a lot of time developing the game and listening to feedback for the whole thing to be ruined by the shitty ME. The new FAs work well (in general), things like player pools were cool and the injury system is a massive improvement. Well, the system is, having 5-6 players injured every fucking game isn't.... but I digress again.
But why was starting a new GW and the resultant economy effects not tested before the reset ? No new GW was run any further than half a season so no one ever saw what was going to happen to the economy, no one knew what would happen with inflation. Things like all the players becoming unlocked at the end of season 1 went unnoticed.
Why was no proper XFA structure put in place ? Some GWs are pretty good for this, but why was no specific XFA event organises appointed to create and run community competitions ? My other GW was a joke, it wasn't until I complained to support that they finally decided to start some, and even then the ones they did were shit, had stupid rules and were completely pointless due things like home playing rights being on in every competition.
What would make me play again ? FML + the old match engine we had before 1.3 (I'll pay everyone's sub for a month if the current one is even playable before the end of this year), a proper PvE structure, no major/minor form and someone with some sense appointed to be in charge of the XFA in every GW. I'd also remove half the mods for being complete clueless fuckwits (tmaz ones are all fine)
I'd also want a new GW, not because of the catching up thing, but because the database is fucked on most GWs now due every other player being an Olympic sprinter - again, raised at least 6 months ago about there being too many high paced regens. I noticed this in Miller well before the reset with just about every team filled with massively pacey youth players.
But the trouble with the beta is there's about 15 people who post on the forums. So you get about 3 people who think something is wrong, a couple who disagree and the rest don't have an opinion on that issue. So SI see 3 people moaning about something (433 anyone? Youth teams anyone?) then think it's not an issue. Then it gets rolled out in live and everyone is going mental about it while a few people are sitting there banging heads on desks thinking.... Well I did say....
There's simply no enjoyment in the game any more, there's no rhyme reason to results, there's no reason to do anything tactical. It's like noughts and crosses, where you know if you do the right thing first you will win every single time. There's absolutely no logic to anything you need to do. You just play 433, play narrow, get loads of pace and jumping and you win. Until completely out of the blue hit bad form and you simply cannot win under any circumstance.
I don't think the game is ever going to succeed. Considering what needs adding, and factoring in SI time, I reckon we are looking at another 18 months of development time. A lot of people say the game was more fun before the reset but if you think about it nothing much has changed. But I enjoyed it more too, why ? Probably because the game has always been fun for the minority, for the few teams at the top of the pile. In the new FML, this isn't even fun any more so even the top teams are bored. Since rankings were killed, since money making competitions were removed (and not filled by some decent XFA stuff in most GWs) there's nothing to do as a top team and making money is easy. Then you don't need any skill because you just do the 433 with pace. Right now I feel like I did before I said the game needed to be reset.... a few months later it was.
Anyway i've kinda quit several times before, but my main team subscription lapsed a couple of months back and my second account IS cancelled now, so that's it.
If I was given a free 12 month subscription right now, I wouldn't use it. I don't even want to play the game for free. It's a complete waste of time logging in, to do nothing, so you can get AI to play league games where the result will depend on which way the wind is blowing.
I could ramble on about this for about another 10,000 words but everyone has probably stopped reading by now.
If anyone still is reading now, every single thing i've moaned about on FML has become a big problem/issue a few months after I said it would. So if you want to make the game good by doing one thing, listen to me and.... Sort out PvE
Rage out.
Fuck this game, fuck the shitty match engine, fuck it up the arse, fuck everyone involved with it, i'm done. The game is horrifically broken.
Form is a complete fucking joke. Just because I lost a few games toward the end of last season and despite replacing much of my squad, why does this mean I have to start the next season in bad form ?
Why, despite having the best squad in the division in terms of ability can I not win a single game ? Why ? All of my players are prime match engine hackers, they are better than any other team in the division. My tactics are perfectly set up to exploit all the ME holes, yet I STILL CANT FUCKING WIN A GAME DUE TO THIS BULLSHIT FORM CRAP.
I've had 6 CCCS, i've had 60% possession, he scores with 1st shot on goal. He scores with 2nd shot on goal. I continue to dominate the game, it's 2-2. He's down to 10 men, OF FUCKING COURSE HE SCORES THE WINNER with his 3rd shot on goal.
I'm playing an all youth team with an average ability of 11. Most of his players don't have more than few attributes in double figures, yet he totally destroys me ? How on earth is this football ? What's changed from last season ? I replaced a load of 16k AF players, who won the division, with good players worth money?
Every game is freak series of events where I dominate the game and get screwed over by something totally bizarre. I've seen this in beta where I went from finishing 2nd in Premier League to relegation spots in the Championship in the space of 2 weeks. Right. Ok. That's not random is it ? Nope, not at all.
Like it's going to get any better with the new ME changes. We were complaining about this youth team crap in DECEMBER, NINE MONTHS ago. Why wasn't it fixed then ? How much longer before the new ME stuff is released ? It will no doubt still be broken in some new exciting way.
The 433 thing was well known before the reset too, it was moaned about on the beta forums quite a lot but again, "there's nothing to see here, move along"
There's absolutely nothing of interest in development for the game as far as I can see either. Youth academies are bollocks, I don't give a shit what they do with them, I have absolutely no interest in this whatsoever.
What else is there in the pipeline... Cheating, Market Value and Moderation apparently. Great, that's really going to give me something else to do isn't it.
The game is full of half arsed, half finished features like reward points, stadiums and CPU challenges which add absolutely sweet fuck all to the game.
Develop _things to do_ No one gives a crap about how Market Value is calculated. It's not even as though you can play in fun competitions due to this minor/major form rubbish which I have also been moaning about for probably going on 18 months now. I'm pretty sure the reason I started this blog was partially down to that.
I feel sorry for Ov in a way because he's spent a lot of time developing the game and listening to feedback for the whole thing to be ruined by the shitty ME. The new FAs work well (in general), things like player pools were cool and the injury system is a massive improvement. Well, the system is, having 5-6 players injured every fucking game isn't.... but I digress again.
But why was starting a new GW and the resultant economy effects not tested before the reset ? No new GW was run any further than half a season so no one ever saw what was going to happen to the economy, no one knew what would happen with inflation. Things like all the players becoming unlocked at the end of season 1 went unnoticed.
Why was no proper XFA structure put in place ? Some GWs are pretty good for this, but why was no specific XFA event organises appointed to create and run community competitions ? My other GW was a joke, it wasn't until I complained to support that they finally decided to start some, and even then the ones they did were shit, had stupid rules and were completely pointless due things like home playing rights being on in every competition.
What would make me play again ? FML + the old match engine we had before 1.3 (I'll pay everyone's sub for a month if the current one is even playable before the end of this year), a proper PvE structure, no major/minor form and someone with some sense appointed to be in charge of the XFA in every GW. I'd also remove half the mods for being complete clueless fuckwits (tmaz ones are all fine)
I'd also want a new GW, not because of the catching up thing, but because the database is fucked on most GWs now due every other player being an Olympic sprinter - again, raised at least 6 months ago about there being too many high paced regens. I noticed this in Miller well before the reset with just about every team filled with massively pacey youth players.
But the trouble with the beta is there's about 15 people who post on the forums. So you get about 3 people who think something is wrong, a couple who disagree and the rest don't have an opinion on that issue. So SI see 3 people moaning about something (433 anyone? Youth teams anyone?) then think it's not an issue. Then it gets rolled out in live and everyone is going mental about it while a few people are sitting there banging heads on desks thinking.... Well I did say....
There's simply no enjoyment in the game any more, there's no rhyme reason to results, there's no reason to do anything tactical. It's like noughts and crosses, where you know if you do the right thing first you will win every single time. There's absolutely no logic to anything you need to do. You just play 433, play narrow, get loads of pace and jumping and you win. Until completely out of the blue hit bad form and you simply cannot win under any circumstance.
I don't think the game is ever going to succeed. Considering what needs adding, and factoring in SI time, I reckon we are looking at another 18 months of development time. A lot of people say the game was more fun before the reset but if you think about it nothing much has changed. But I enjoyed it more too, why ? Probably because the game has always been fun for the minority, for the few teams at the top of the pile. In the new FML, this isn't even fun any more so even the top teams are bored. Since rankings were killed, since money making competitions were removed (and not filled by some decent XFA stuff in most GWs) there's nothing to do as a top team and making money is easy. Then you don't need any skill because you just do the 433 with pace. Right now I feel like I did before I said the game needed to be reset.... a few months later it was.
Anyway i've kinda quit several times before, but my main team subscription lapsed a couple of months back and my second account IS cancelled now, so that's it.
If I was given a free 12 month subscription right now, I wouldn't use it. I don't even want to play the game for free. It's a complete waste of time logging in, to do nothing, so you can get AI to play league games where the result will depend on which way the wind is blowing.
I could ramble on about this for about another 10,000 words but everyone has probably stopped reading by now.
If anyone still is reading now, every single thing i've moaned about on FML has become a big problem/issue a few months after I said it would. So if you want to make the game good by doing one thing, listen to me and.... Sort out PvE
Rage out.
Sunday 15 August 2010
Oh Shit!
Wage auctions have gone epically bad and i've not really managed to sign anyone. I changed tact and went for players on the free agent list too but lost out on them too ! This wasn't especially helped by the fact I was away for the weekend and missed a couple of days of wage auctions either. I've punted in on a load of old free agents which should hopefully last a season or so and get me promoted.
I'd decided to configure email alerts for transfers and was checking these on the iphone while out with the GF. She was interested in knowing what I was doing, so I figured this it was about time to explain FML to her.
She was not impressed. I'm not allowed to play it any more, the other girls there were also deeply offended and they all seemed to have had some kind of bad boyfriend related FM experiences.
I'd decided to configure email alerts for transfers and was checking these on the iphone while out with the GF. She was interested in knowing what I was doing, so I figured this it was about time to explain FML to her.
She was not impressed. I'm not allowed to play it any more, the other girls there were also deeply offended and they all seemed to have had some kind of bad boyfriend related FM experiences.
Friday 13 August 2010
Wouldn't it be nice
Things seem pretty quiet it the world of FML of late.
The only hot topics seem to be the ongoing ME saga and the major/minor competition form seems to finally be getting some attention after I have spent the last year or so complaining about it !
Those issues aside there seems to be a general despondence from many of the long time FML'ers. I think in the past there was always a big issue to unite people, like the Gameworlds were dying, the game was going to die and various other big issues. I really don't think we have any massive issues like this any more. I think due to this people are starting to see the bigger picture and they are thinking "you know what ? I'm kind of bored"
Of course, many are bored because of ME related issues but it goes further than that and back to the age old issue of there not being a right lot to do. Other than a few daily things to do you are essentially limited to playing matches.
So what exactly is it people DO want from the game ? I'd have thought that PvE would have been of massive interest to people. A proper engaging PvE experience where there is always something for you to do when you want to do it and how you want to do it. Something to take away from the stress and worry of official league games.
But judging by the lack of interest in the what would you like to see in PvE thread, then maybe not ?
I don't get it, what do people want to do instead ? Play Poker ? Top Trumps ? What else is there to do in an football game other than play matches ? I really don't think an MMO can work without a proper PvE experience. I don't know of one which works on a purely PvP basis, although I guess there probably is one.
While i'm generalising a lot here, the FM titles have always tended to attract a different type of gamer to normal games. I always got the impression that many FM players never really played _other_ games. There's nothing wrong with this but I think it is giving people some kind of tunnel vision where they are just seeing PvP and live games as the be all and end all.
There's 24 hours in a day, there's people online from other timezones, many leagues only have ~40 games in a season.... That's a couple a day. What are the odds you are actually going to be able to PvP all of these games ? Are you going to come online and sit there for 12 hours waiting for the time the other manager comes on ?
Maybe you WOULD stay online for 12 hours if there was something else to do ? But I have a life and don't want to spend 12 hours online. Yes, because everyone who starts playing an MMO does it with the clear intention to spend their entire life on it don't they ? I remember about 10 years ago, being up at 3am in the morning fucking mining ore on Ultima Online. Why ? I have no idea at all why this seemed like a good idea. But alas, when I finally woke up the next day I logged on to wrestle come cows for several hours. During this time period I got PK'ed several times and had all my stuff stolen (ahh back when MMOs weren't fairly safe land... anyway I digress), met other players and had lots of fun.
I remember mining for a few hours when someone decided to come visit my mine with the intention of killing me. Unfortunately for him, i'd acquired some mage skills, trapped him in my mine with a wall and a blade spirit before teleporting away and watched the comedy from outside.
The point of this story ? I was online doing PvE and as a consequence I ended up in a PvP scenario, and the reason I was online to do the PvP was because of the PvE. Is this making sense yet ?
Anyway, reward point stuff and about a million other small things would be pretty easy to add into the game at some level i'd imagine but with FML progress is always slow. PvE would no doubt be a bigger job to properly but i'd imagine it would be entirely possibly for it to form the focus of a proper update. From the recent Korea announcement I get the impression that the FML development is RB doing something with youth academies while Ov does the rest of the coding.
Before the reset Ov seemed to be coding 24/7 so I expect he's back to sane hours these days which is making progress even slower. Will this ever change, will the team ever get better ? I read this probably little known and inactive blog a few months back which makes me wonder if it will?
The only hot topics seem to be the ongoing ME saga and the major/minor competition form seems to finally be getting some attention after I have spent the last year or so complaining about it !
Those issues aside there seems to be a general despondence from many of the long time FML'ers. I think in the past there was always a big issue to unite people, like the Gameworlds were dying, the game was going to die and various other big issues. I really don't think we have any massive issues like this any more. I think due to this people are starting to see the bigger picture and they are thinking "you know what ? I'm kind of bored"
Of course, many are bored because of ME related issues but it goes further than that and back to the age old issue of there not being a right lot to do. Other than a few daily things to do you are essentially limited to playing matches.
So what exactly is it people DO want from the game ? I'd have thought that PvE would have been of massive interest to people. A proper engaging PvE experience where there is always something for you to do when you want to do it and how you want to do it. Something to take away from the stress and worry of official league games.
But judging by the lack of interest in the what would you like to see in PvE thread, then maybe not ?
I don't get it, what do people want to do instead ? Play Poker ? Top Trumps ? What else is there to do in an football game other than play matches ? I really don't think an MMO can work without a proper PvE experience. I don't know of one which works on a purely PvP basis, although I guess there probably is one.
While i'm generalising a lot here, the FM titles have always tended to attract a different type of gamer to normal games. I always got the impression that many FM players never really played _other_ games. There's nothing wrong with this but I think it is giving people some kind of tunnel vision where they are just seeing PvP and live games as the be all and end all.
There's 24 hours in a day, there's people online from other timezones, many leagues only have ~40 games in a season.... That's a couple a day. What are the odds you are actually going to be able to PvP all of these games ? Are you going to come online and sit there for 12 hours waiting for the time the other manager comes on ?
Maybe you WOULD stay online for 12 hours if there was something else to do ? But I have a life and don't want to spend 12 hours online. Yes, because everyone who starts playing an MMO does it with the clear intention to spend their entire life on it don't they ? I remember about 10 years ago, being up at 3am in the morning fucking mining ore on Ultima Online. Why ? I have no idea at all why this seemed like a good idea. But alas, when I finally woke up the next day I logged on to wrestle come cows for several hours. During this time period I got PK'ed several times and had all my stuff stolen (ahh back when MMOs weren't fairly safe land... anyway I digress), met other players and had lots of fun.
I remember mining for a few hours when someone decided to come visit my mine with the intention of killing me. Unfortunately for him, i'd acquired some mage skills, trapped him in my mine with a wall and a blade spirit before teleporting away and watched the comedy from outside.
The point of this story ? I was online doing PvE and as a consequence I ended up in a PvP scenario, and the reason I was online to do the PvP was because of the PvE. Is this making sense yet ?
Anyway, reward point stuff and about a million other small things would be pretty easy to add into the game at some level i'd imagine but with FML progress is always slow. PvE would no doubt be a bigger job to properly but i'd imagine it would be entirely possibly for it to form the focus of a proper update. From the recent Korea announcement I get the impression that the FML development is RB doing something with youth academies while Ov does the rest of the coding.
Before the reset Ov seemed to be coding 24/7 so I expect he's back to sane hours these days which is making progress even slower. Will this ever change, will the team ever get better ? I read this probably little known and inactive blog a few months back which makes me wonder if it will?
Monday 9 August 2010
Without Me
The season wasn't going too badly in all honesty, then as I mentioned in my last post I was going to be away on Saturday.
On my return I found my AI had lost 8 games in a row which pretty much relegated me. My AI has something like a win ratio of 20% compared to my online win ratio of around 55%
If I had been there to play the games i'm convinced this wouldn't have happened. The other problem was I couldn't reselect my players returning from injury so I play around 6 games without my first choice players because they had been injured for one game.
We have match plans, but i'd much rather have some way to select your first choice 11 depending on certain criteria like fitness and the likes. So if a striker gets injured while i'm away I would be able to select who the AI should play instead of him. This is another reason why I don't like playing XFA competitions because it means I have to reshuffle my team for every game to put the injured players back in the starting 11. I'm not trying to sound lazy, but it causes issues if i'm offline because i'm not playing my best 11.
My match plans, while basic, essentially replicate what I do while online so I don't really understand why my AI is so terrible. I don't know why people always whine about losing to AI teams because they are so much easier to beat.
While typing this i've just logged in and found that technically i've not been relegated and there's a fair chance I would stay up if I win my last 2 games, especially as one is against another team in the relegation zone. Alas they both have AI rights over me and I was moaning about previously.... I had 3 MCs get injured and stick in the last couple of games and another is suspended. So once again, the game has decided to make every player in one position unavailable...
I'm not going to bother playing the games because it's false hope, once you are at this stage of the season the finishing positions are pretty much set in stone, predicted points is rarely wrong and things don't change much. I'll just hope for some AI ME magic as my AI must be due to actually win a game sometime soon.
Anyway the EFA season appears to have finished 3 days before the actual GW season ends so i'm going to take a break for a few days before seeing what I can do in wage auctions. As i'm on bad form now, I pretty much need to buy an entire new team, which I probably needed to do anyway.
So all in all a fairly enjoyable and eventful season. Two promotions and one relegation so i'm still up on where I started from.
On an unrelated note i've noticed that most of the active bloggers seem to be on GW
Turkyilmaz, with me, Jak, Rik and Thom. It's a bit of a strange GW compared to the others I have been in and seems fairly relaxed and sensible. It's not as busy as Butragueno was and there was always something mental going on there which I do kind of miss but it just seems a more mature crowd on Tmaz. I've not really got involved much in anything due to time restraints and a lack of interest in things these days though.
The mods seem good too compared to other GWs I have been in, probably the best in fact - I've not really seen them do anything or talk complete balls/provide misinformation. Being seen but not heard is the way to moderate... Other GWs take note.
We also have a GW blog which is worth checking out STUFFED and I wish them all best with it.
On my return I found my AI had lost 8 games in a row which pretty much relegated me. My AI has something like a win ratio of 20% compared to my online win ratio of around 55%
If I had been there to play the games i'm convinced this wouldn't have happened. The other problem was I couldn't reselect my players returning from injury so I play around 6 games without my first choice players because they had been injured for one game.
We have match plans, but i'd much rather have some way to select your first choice 11 depending on certain criteria like fitness and the likes. So if a striker gets injured while i'm away I would be able to select who the AI should play instead of him. This is another reason why I don't like playing XFA competitions because it means I have to reshuffle my team for every game to put the injured players back in the starting 11. I'm not trying to sound lazy, but it causes issues if i'm offline because i'm not playing my best 11.
My match plans, while basic, essentially replicate what I do while online so I don't really understand why my AI is so terrible. I don't know why people always whine about losing to AI teams because they are so much easier to beat.
While typing this i've just logged in and found that technically i've not been relegated and there's a fair chance I would stay up if I win my last 2 games, especially as one is against another team in the relegation zone. Alas they both have AI rights over me and I was moaning about previously.... I had 3 MCs get injured and stick in the last couple of games and another is suspended. So once again, the game has decided to make every player in one position unavailable...
I'm not going to bother playing the games because it's false hope, once you are at this stage of the season the finishing positions are pretty much set in stone, predicted points is rarely wrong and things don't change much. I'll just hope for some AI ME magic as my AI must be due to actually win a game sometime soon.
Anyway the EFA season appears to have finished 3 days before the actual GW season ends so i'm going to take a break for a few days before seeing what I can do in wage auctions. As i'm on bad form now, I pretty much need to buy an entire new team, which I probably needed to do anyway.
So all in all a fairly enjoyable and eventful season. Two promotions and one relegation so i'm still up on where I started from.
On an unrelated note i've noticed that most of the active bloggers seem to be on GW
Turkyilmaz, with me, Jak, Rik and Thom. It's a bit of a strange GW compared to the others I have been in and seems fairly relaxed and sensible. It's not as busy as Butragueno was and there was always something mental going on there which I do kind of miss but it just seems a more mature crowd on Tmaz. I've not really got involved much in anything due to time restraints and a lack of interest in things these days though.
The mods seem good too compared to other GWs I have been in, probably the best in fact - I've not really seen them do anything or talk complete balls/provide misinformation. Being seen but not heard is the way to moderate... Other GWs take note.
We also have a GW blog which is worth checking out STUFFED and I wish them all best with it.
Saturday 7 August 2010
Everyone Hurts
Seriously, this injury patch crap can just fuck right off now.
It happens EVERY single season. You have no injuries at all, then suddenly ALL of your fucking defence gets injured or ALL of your midfield gets injured. It's clearly been coded in to work this way or it's a bug because it happens way too often for it to be coincidence.
My DC goes off injured, I bring on a sub, he goes off injured. Both stick. Next game another 2 defenders go off injured.... There's strength in depth but what are you supposed to do when you have 6 strikers injured ? As I did last season..
But it just doesn't end there. My defence are all injured for 5 games, I only have 4 AI games to play today. I'm going to be away until Sunday night. So, this means that after 1 AI game tonight which will be played against me, some of my players will be back and fit. But I can't leave them selected because the AI will play them while they are half dead.
I wont be here to play 10 CPU games to get them fit either. Speaking of which, i've just had to play AN HOUR AND HALF of CPU games to get my midfielder back to match condition (he's still only on 96%) after he returned from injury.
Not that it made a fucking difference because my 4th defender went off injured in the 6th minute leaving me with no central defenders left, so on comes my right back and a short time later he's on a 5 and i'm losing.
I suspect this is going to destroy the season because i've got 6 AI games tonight and I wont be here and wont be able to select the right/fit players.
It's like the game FORCES you to be hardcore, because you have to be there all of the time but when you are on there's nothing to do except grind through CPU games to get fitness back up. Then you miss a single day and a month's worth of effort is ruined.
The game simply doesn't work, it's neither casual nor hardcore. If you want to get anywhere you HAVE to be online all the time, but there's no hardcore element to the game other than "sitting online"
It happens EVERY single season. You have no injuries at all, then suddenly ALL of your fucking defence gets injured or ALL of your midfield gets injured. It's clearly been coded in to work this way or it's a bug because it happens way too often for it to be coincidence.
My DC goes off injured, I bring on a sub, he goes off injured. Both stick. Next game another 2 defenders go off injured.... There's strength in depth but what are you supposed to do when you have 6 strikers injured ? As I did last season..
But it just doesn't end there. My defence are all injured for 5 games, I only have 4 AI games to play today. I'm going to be away until Sunday night. So, this means that after 1 AI game tonight which will be played against me, some of my players will be back and fit. But I can't leave them selected because the AI will play them while they are half dead.
I wont be here to play 10 CPU games to get them fit either. Speaking of which, i've just had to play AN HOUR AND HALF of CPU games to get my midfielder back to match condition (he's still only on 96%) after he returned from injury.
Not that it made a fucking difference because my 4th defender went off injured in the 6th minute leaving me with no central defenders left, so on comes my right back and a short time later he's on a 5 and i'm losing.
I suspect this is going to destroy the season because i've got 6 AI games tonight and I wont be here and wont be able to select the right/fit players.
It's like the game FORCES you to be hardcore, because you have to be there all of the time but when you are on there's nothing to do except grind through CPU games to get fitness back up. Then you miss a single day and a month's worth of effort is ruined.
The game simply doesn't work, it's neither casual nor hardcore. If you want to get anywhere you HAVE to be online all the time, but there's no hardcore element to the game other than "sitting online"
Tuesday 3 August 2010
I'm a believer
So run #3 of my first season begins and I find myself in the Championship.
There's clubs here with average ability of 19 ! I'm screwed aren't I ?
Time to pray for some special ME magic to be on my side.
Sunday 1 August 2010
Time for Heroes
It's been a long hard run in the EFA this time round. As the dust settles from run 2 I have 5 players out injured, no midfield left, suspensions all over the place and a lack of funds to bring in replacements.
Fortunately, I have won promotion to the Championship with a 3rd place finish ! I'm so proud of my team. I was the 4th lowest ability team in the division and could see a massive gulf in class in various games. Watching my team run round like headless chickens getting totally out classed, but they never gave up and grinded out the results when it mattered.
I stuck to my own advice and didn't panic in any games, just let the magic of the ME do its job. I was massively screwed over on several occasions with last minute equalisers and winners for the opposition all over the place but I had my fair share of ME bullshittery on my side too.
So i'm half way through the first season of my 3 season plan to win the Premiership and i'm 1 tier away. I really can't see me getting promoted for a 3rd time in a row next run though.
As i'm starting with half my team injured or suspended i'm going to have massive problems but i'm going to go for it, all out to win promotion. There's no other way, forget about the building for the future, everything is now, death or glory. If it's not looking good after a few games the plan is to avoid relegation, then buy a completely new team for season 2.
Fortunately, I have won promotion to the Championship with a 3rd place finish ! I'm so proud of my team. I was the 4th lowest ability team in the division and could see a massive gulf in class in various games. Watching my team run round like headless chickens getting totally out classed, but they never gave up and grinded out the results when it mattered.
I stuck to my own advice and didn't panic in any games, just let the magic of the ME do its job. I was massively screwed over on several occasions with last minute equalisers and winners for the opposition all over the place but I had my fair share of ME bullshittery on my side too.
So i'm half way through the first season of my 3 season plan to win the Premiership and i'm 1 tier away. I really can't see me getting promoted for a 3rd time in a row next run though.
As i'm starting with half my team injured or suspended i'm going to have massive problems but i'm going to go for it, all out to win promotion. There's no other way, forget about the building for the future, everything is now, death or glory. If it's not looking good after a few games the plan is to avoid relegation, then buy a completely new team for season 2.
Friday 30 July 2010
Never Lose Your Sense of Wonder
hmm.
Not going especially well at the moment, went about 6 games without a win yesterday. I'm suffering from copious amounts of ME bullshittery at the moment. To be fair, I have one of the lowest abilities in my division so I should be losing games, but why do I have to dominate the games then lose ? Why do I have to lose in the 94th minute ? Why do I have to be completely robbed of every single result by some freak event ? Because that's what FML is about - destroying your soul.
Anyway, i've found a bit of time to write a blog post now. After my entire midfield got injured, it's time for my entire strike force to be injured. My main striker got injured for 1 single game so now it's going to take around 10 CPU games before he's in a state to play my last AI game of the day. Fun times. It's so demented.... your striker hurts his hand wanking, misses one game then needs another 10 games to get his fitness back... riiiiight, okay. Most annoyingly half the challenges go to bloody extra time too, meaning there's no fitness benefit to the extra 10 minutes worth of wasted life. Just come back to a CPU game where i've not watched anything whatsoever, to see 30 shots on goal against a level 1 team and i'm apparently not winning. gg wp.
Predicted points has me 2nd still despite the amount of times I have been robbed but i'm going to be away tomorrow so will miss all my AI games and wont have time to play 20+ CPU games to get fitness back. I just need to be in top 4 for promotion and then i'll be happy. I didn't expect to start this high in the FA so i'm a bit ahead of myself and had not planned for this, just need 2 more promotions to hit the big time.
Anyway, all these shitty CPU games has got me thinking again. There needs to be some better PvP experience in FML rather than playing these pointless challenges, not paying any attention to what is going on then waiting for the match to finish so my striker can gain an extra 1% fitness.
Lets get some real teams going on in the CPU leagues instead of "Random Uninteresting Town" Obviously the player licences are in place because we have the players, so I find it hard to believe that they don't have the rights to use real life teams.
So instead of playing boring CPU challenges why not let me enter my team in the English League starting in the Conference and working my way up, playing real teams like on FM ? Maybe I could go play in Spain or Italy instead, against the likes of AC Milan and Barcelona. Now you instantly have a great PvE experience and reason to stay on line longer.
So you could play a full season in your own time, play as few or as many games as you like against real life teams and work your way up into the Premiership to see how YOUR team competes against the real life big boys.
But would people be more interested in playing these games rather than the normal FA games ? Maybe, but lets say you can be challenged while playing these games (while not in DnD) and we can use SI's awesome new match recovery system to auto resume the PvE game when you have done with your live game.
Come on, even if for some reason you can't use real teams, just use real players and make some fake teams or something. There's about a million and one ways you could make this awesome.
Forget about youth academies and crap like this, it's just a yawnathon, sort out the PvE aspect so people have reason to stay online more.
On another side note, the forums are still fucking shit. I can't believe how badly they have managed to ruin the site. Every every time load a new thread you have to wait about 3 seconds before you can even start scrolling, then it's a massive lagathon just scrolling down the page. Honestly, I can't think of another website which is worse which I use. Even if I refresh the forum, then switch to another tab while it's refreshing, it lags out my entire browser....
Sort it out so I can moan about things more please because visiting the forum is now a massive pain in the arse.
Not going especially well at the moment, went about 6 games without a win yesterday. I'm suffering from copious amounts of ME bullshittery at the moment. To be fair, I have one of the lowest abilities in my division so I should be losing games, but why do I have to dominate the games then lose ? Why do I have to lose in the 94th minute ? Why do I have to be completely robbed of every single result by some freak event ? Because that's what FML is about - destroying your soul.
Anyway, i've found a bit of time to write a blog post now. After my entire midfield got injured, it's time for my entire strike force to be injured. My main striker got injured for 1 single game so now it's going to take around 10 CPU games before he's in a state to play my last AI game of the day. Fun times. It's so demented.... your striker hurts his hand wanking, misses one game then needs another 10 games to get his fitness back... riiiiight, okay. Most annoyingly half the challenges go to bloody extra time too, meaning there's no fitness benefit to the extra 10 minutes worth of wasted life. Just come back to a CPU game where i've not watched anything whatsoever, to see 30 shots on goal against a level 1 team and i'm apparently not winning. gg wp.
Predicted points has me 2nd still despite the amount of times I have been robbed but i'm going to be away tomorrow so will miss all my AI games and wont have time to play 20+ CPU games to get fitness back. I just need to be in top 4 for promotion and then i'll be happy. I didn't expect to start this high in the FA so i'm a bit ahead of myself and had not planned for this, just need 2 more promotions to hit the big time.
Anyway, all these shitty CPU games has got me thinking again. There needs to be some better PvP experience in FML rather than playing these pointless challenges, not paying any attention to what is going on then waiting for the match to finish so my striker can gain an extra 1% fitness.
Lets get some real teams going on in the CPU leagues instead of "Random Uninteresting Town" Obviously the player licences are in place because we have the players, so I find it hard to believe that they don't have the rights to use real life teams.
So instead of playing boring CPU challenges why not let me enter my team in the English League starting in the Conference and working my way up, playing real teams like on FM ? Maybe I could go play in Spain or Italy instead, against the likes of AC Milan and Barcelona. Now you instantly have a great PvE experience and reason to stay on line longer.
So you could play a full season in your own time, play as few or as many games as you like against real life teams and work your way up into the Premiership to see how YOUR team competes against the real life big boys.
But would people be more interested in playing these games rather than the normal FA games ? Maybe, but lets say you can be challenged while playing these games (while not in DnD) and we can use SI's awesome new match recovery system to auto resume the PvE game when you have done with your live game.
Come on, even if for some reason you can't use real teams, just use real players and make some fake teams or something. There's about a million and one ways you could make this awesome.
Forget about youth academies and crap like this, it's just a yawnathon, sort out the PvE aspect so people have reason to stay online more.
On another side note, the forums are still fucking shit. I can't believe how badly they have managed to ruin the site. Every every time load a new thread you have to wait about 3 seconds before you can even start scrolling, then it's a massive lagathon just scrolling down the page. Honestly, I can't think of another website which is worse which I use. Even if I refresh the forum, then switch to another tab while it's refreshing, it lags out my entire browser....
Sort it out so I can moan about things more please because visiting the forum is now a massive pain in the arse.
Monday 26 July 2010
Moving on Up
The first run of the EFA is over and I have managed to take the title, so here's my first promotion after 6 days and only 3 more tiers to climb. (Yes, this is the full league and yes there are only 11 teams..)
It's funny that everyone seems to be complaining about the ME at the moment but i'm kind of happy with it from a selfish point of view because as long as you do a few things right then you generally win most of your games.
I'm especially annoyed with cup games right now though. We are told you only have minor and major form, but whatever controls results, call it form or something else (I like to call it bullshitery) My team has a complete inability to perform in any cup game.
It's such a joke, I play fine in league then as soon as a cup game comes up, no matter what strength the opposition, what the competition is or the venue. My team either don't turn up or I get super keepered and one shot wondered. Yet in the league I can do no wrong. I had exactly the same problem on my old GW with my Premiership team too.
I've played and watched far too many games to know this is happening and it's not my imagination. There's a distinct difference between how my team PLAYS - not necessarily the result, but what they do on the pitch in cup games compared to league games.
I already don't play any non major games due to the different form in those competitions but i'm thinking about asking to be withdrawn from the FA cup competitions next season too. All that happens is I get half my team injured and robbed by the result.
I'll leave the specific ME feedback to everyone else and stick with what I posted on here in February - "they have fixed the game but broke the ME"
Check pretty much anything I posted in February when I was still bothered/angry. Other than the outside the box corner, nothing has changed.
It's funny that everyone seems to be complaining about the ME at the moment but i'm kind of happy with it from a selfish point of view because as long as you do a few things right then you generally win most of your games.
I'm especially annoyed with cup games right now though. We are told you only have minor and major form, but whatever controls results, call it form or something else (I like to call it bullshitery) My team has a complete inability to perform in any cup game.
It's such a joke, I play fine in league then as soon as a cup game comes up, no matter what strength the opposition, what the competition is or the venue. My team either don't turn up or I get super keepered and one shot wondered. Yet in the league I can do no wrong. I had exactly the same problem on my old GW with my Premiership team too.
I've played and watched far too many games to know this is happening and it's not my imagination. There's a distinct difference between how my team PLAYS - not necessarily the result, but what they do on the pitch in cup games compared to league games.
I already don't play any non major games due to the different form in those competitions but i'm thinking about asking to be withdrawn from the FA cup competitions next season too. All that happens is I get half my team injured and robbed by the result.
I'll leave the specific ME feedback to everyone else and stick with what I posted on here in February - "they have fixed the game but broke the ME"
Check pretty much anything I posted in February when I was still bothered/angry. Other than the outside the box corner, nothing has changed.
Friday 23 July 2010
Fire
Not much happening, had a request for a picture of my new striker so here he is:
I have had some funny old games today though. What kind of annoys me about FML is it totally refuses to let you lose in any kind of fair manner. How often have you played a game, been a bit better than the other team and won the game or vice versa? This barely ever happens, I don't think I could name more than about 1 game a season this occurs.
Lets take a game I played earlier. I'm playing an all youth team, i'm 3-0 down within about 15 minutes to the only 3 shots he has had on goal. This is annoying for two obvious reasons.
I say to myself, it doesn't matter, i'm going to win anyway. A short while later and following my own tactical advice, of course it's 3-3 now. I didn't need to do much, because you don't need to. So now we have a ridiculous comeback in play. Next thing is i'm hammering him off the field, 7 CCCS later and his GK who's on a 5.8 has suddenly become the reincarnation of Gordan Banks. This is annoying. Then he has a DC sent off. Good times a ahoy, he's offline, he's not got anyone in the middle of his defence, lets get the ball down here. Alas, this makes no difference whatsoever and he proceeds to start hammering me into the ground. This is annoying. I manage to hold on then win on penalties. But come on, why does every game have to be like this ?
I'm 3-0 up after about 20 minutes, i'm cruising, all my players are playing with confidence while the other team is looking angry, looking furious, making mistakes. But this doesn't matter, they are going to keep coming at me like a battering ram. It's 3-2 now, i'm holding on for dear life. I win, but again... come on ffs, just let me win a bloody game normally.
Every single game I have lost this season has a common theme.... yep, I conceded every single shot on target.
I'm playing in the GW Cup and I don't think i've made it past the 1st round once post reset. I'm 2-0 down after the only 2 shots he's had on goal. It's a tight match, this is okay, maybe it's not my day. But it can't just leave it at that can it ? Of course, not. I now have 3 midfielders injured. I now have a DC sent off, i'm now 3-0 down.
I just want games where one team is better than the other and wins the match...Normal games.... This actually does kind of happen a lot in foodball ya know.
Plus, what's with these injury patches ? Last season I went through a phase where I only got strikers injured having 5 out at one point. This season it's my mifield with one going off every bloody game. As soon as one comes back another two get kung fuud off the pitch.
Regardless, i'm top of the league so promotion should be on for the first EFA run.
I have had some funny old games today though. What kind of annoys me about FML is it totally refuses to let you lose in any kind of fair manner. How often have you played a game, been a bit better than the other team and won the game or vice versa? This barely ever happens, I don't think I could name more than about 1 game a season this occurs.
Lets take a game I played earlier. I'm playing an all youth team, i'm 3-0 down within about 15 minutes to the only 3 shots he has had on goal. This is annoying for two obvious reasons.
I say to myself, it doesn't matter, i'm going to win anyway. A short while later and following my own tactical advice, of course it's 3-3 now. I didn't need to do much, because you don't need to. So now we have a ridiculous comeback in play. Next thing is i'm hammering him off the field, 7 CCCS later and his GK who's on a 5.8 has suddenly become the reincarnation of Gordan Banks. This is annoying. Then he has a DC sent off. Good times a ahoy, he's offline, he's not got anyone in the middle of his defence, lets get the ball down here. Alas, this makes no difference whatsoever and he proceeds to start hammering me into the ground. This is annoying. I manage to hold on then win on penalties. But come on, why does every game have to be like this ?
I'm 3-0 up after about 20 minutes, i'm cruising, all my players are playing with confidence while the other team is looking angry, looking furious, making mistakes. But this doesn't matter, they are going to keep coming at me like a battering ram. It's 3-2 now, i'm holding on for dear life. I win, but again... come on ffs, just let me win a bloody game normally.
Every single game I have lost this season has a common theme.... yep, I conceded every single shot on target.
I'm playing in the GW Cup and I don't think i've made it past the 1st round once post reset. I'm 2-0 down after the only 2 shots he's had on goal. It's a tight match, this is okay, maybe it's not my day. But it can't just leave it at that can it ? Of course, not. I now have 3 midfielders injured. I now have a DC sent off, i'm now 3-0 down.
I just want games where one team is better than the other and wins the match...Normal games.... This actually does kind of happen a lot in foodball ya know.
Plus, what's with these injury patches ? Last season I went through a phase where I only got strikers injured having 5 out at one point. This season it's my mifield with one going off every bloody game. As soon as one comes back another two get kung fuud off the pitch.
Regardless, i'm top of the league so promotion should be on for the first EFA run.
Thursday 22 July 2010
Crazy Low Down Ways
I'm sure by now people have realised I have many crazy theories and tend to act irrationally at times ;)
So yesterday, I lost my first game and decided I was in bad form and needed to do something about this. I remembered this quite late this afternoon, so logged on and headed of to the market place. About 5 minutes later I bought the first player I was offered for a transfer record of £2m. Remember this is my first full season so that is quite a lot, bringing my total spending to about £2.5m.
I decided what I needed to fix my bad form was a new striker. So I bought a winger. He can can also play up front though. He only has 11 finishing, like that matters! But he has an higher AF than any of my other players so it should provide a nice little CA boost to my squad.
4 games later, he has scored 6 goals, 1 assist and an average of 8.57 and things are back on track. My other striker has returned from injury so my strike force should be fairly handy at this level I reckon.
So I guess we will never know if I was in bad form, but another one of my 'crazy superstitions' has seemingly worked out quite well.
Whenever people complain about results on the forum and there's some kind of official response it often mentions that the average CA of teams is similar etc. So I reckon it's always useful to try and bump up your average CA in times of crisis.
In other good news I notice i'm not actually in the lowest tier of the FA. I guess because I won the Reception FA and gained a bit of rep I got placed a bit higher. This means I'm only in the 4th tier of the EFA, which runs 3 times per season.
So it's actually possible I could get to the Premiership in my first season. I reckon i'll settle for a position in the Championship though to be on the safe side. I've spunked my emergency transfer fund pretty early but my squad is big so I can cover injuries hopefully.
So yesterday, I lost my first game and decided I was in bad form and needed to do something about this. I remembered this quite late this afternoon, so logged on and headed of to the market place. About 5 minutes later I bought the first player I was offered for a transfer record of £2m. Remember this is my first full season so that is quite a lot, bringing my total spending to about £2.5m.
I decided what I needed to fix my bad form was a new striker. So I bought a winger. He can can also play up front though. He only has 11 finishing, like that matters! But he has an higher AF than any of my other players so it should provide a nice little CA boost to my squad.
4 games later, he has scored 6 goals, 1 assist and an average of 8.57 and things are back on track. My other striker has returned from injury so my strike force should be fairly handy at this level I reckon.
So I guess we will never know if I was in bad form, but another one of my 'crazy superstitions' has seemingly worked out quite well.
Whenever people complain about results on the forum and there's some kind of official response it often mentions that the average CA of teams is similar etc. So I reckon it's always useful to try and bump up your average CA in times of crisis.
In other good news I notice i'm not actually in the lowest tier of the FA. I guess because I won the Reception FA and gained a bit of rep I got placed a bit higher. This means I'm only in the 4th tier of the EFA, which runs 3 times per season.
So it's actually possible I could get to the Premiership in my first season. I reckon i'll settle for a position in the Championship though to be on the safe side. I've spunked my emergency transfer fund pretty early but my squad is big so I can cover injuries hopefully.
Wednesday 21 July 2010
Retreat
So erm, I started my campaign to win the Premier League in an existing GW within 3 seasons tonight.
It's bad news. Very bad.
I lost my first game to an all youth team who are 4 ability points below mine. Of course, I completely dominated the game, got super keepered and they scored with their only shots of the game.
But this is badness of epic proportions. It was a home game, my striker went off injured, it stuck and I was done over big style.
This means one thing and one thing only. I'm in bad form. There's no way out of this other than to buy a new team. One game played, but I already know it is all over unless I make massive changes. I need to spend several million to fix this otherwise I will be stuck in bad form for the rest of the season now. I can tell from just one single game this is going to happen, FML really is that predictable, i've seen this so many times.
Losing the first game, and a home game no less, is a complete and utter fucking disaster.
Finishing work early tomorrow, so I may be able to fix this yet. I saved a couple of million in case this happened so I need to bring in some big players before I can play another game.
Bad times... bad times indeed.
It's bad news. Very bad.
I lost my first game to an all youth team who are 4 ability points below mine. Of course, I completely dominated the game, got super keepered and they scored with their only shots of the game.
But this is badness of epic proportions. It was a home game, my striker went off injured, it stuck and I was done over big style.
This means one thing and one thing only. I'm in bad form. There's no way out of this other than to buy a new team. One game played, but I already know it is all over unless I make massive changes. I need to spend several million to fix this otherwise I will be stuck in bad form for the rest of the season now. I can tell from just one single game this is going to happen, FML really is that predictable, i've seen this so many times.
Losing the first game, and a home game no less, is a complete and utter fucking disaster.
Finishing work early tomorrow, so I may be able to fix this yet. I saved a couple of million in case this happened so I need to bring in some big players before I can play another game.
Bad times... bad times indeed.
Saturday 17 July 2010
Orange Crush
I've been avoiding this for a while because I reckon anyone who actually reads my blog will already know all of this, but seen as the orange arrows of doom debate rages onwards I thought I may as well.
Short Version
Does your player have orange arrows ? Ignore them, there is no problem here.
Long Version
(yeah i'm copying and pasting some bits of this from what i've wrote before)
Lets talk about player development first and how it works.
Potential Ability (PA) – Every player in the database has PA between 1-200 and a Current Ability (CA) between 1 and their PA level. PA does not change and if a player’s CA hits their PA then they will have become as good as they possibly can. As an example, Cristiano Ronaldo will have a PA around 195 and his CA will be around 190 as he is a world class player at his peak. On the other hand a player like Toni Kroos may have a PA of 170-190 but a CA of 145 because he has not hit his peak yet.
As attributes increase so does a player's CA, once all the PA points are used up then a player will have peaked and no more progression is possible.
Once a player has reached neared CA, this is when you usually start to see orange arrows. Players on FML are actually on training schedules behind the scenes. I don't know how these are set up but I suspect they are set to be conservative and generic and don't shape players as well as you can on the FM series.
So even when a player has reached his potential ability, he will continue to 'develop', so a striker is probably still training something like passing in the background and one day he's learnt to pass a bit better so passing increases. But he doesn't have any ability points left to learn this new passing ability, so something else goes down a little bit to free up the points.
This is known as attribute bounce. Now, I can understand why people might be a little bit confused why a striker is losing something such as composure to get better at dribbling. But the attribute change is tiny ! It's NOT going to change how that player performs on the pitch to any noticeable extent. If you have a striker with 16 finishing and it's gone down by 0.04, he has lost 0.25% of his finishing ability. Think about that, how is that going to change his performance ? erm, it's not ! Things such as morale, home advantage, tactics and about a dozen other things influence how these attributes interact with the ME to a much larger extent.
Orange arrows are one of the most useful tools you have as a manager. Once you see them starting to appear you know your player isn't going to get much better so you can make a decision on whether you want to keep him, knowing he wont get much better, or whether you want to move him on and bring someone better in. It looks like we are actually going to lose this knowledge due to people moaning about arrows now.
Before we had orange arrows and just red arrows, it used to work like this:
Attributes are displayed in the 1-20 range on the screen they are actually stored in the 1-10,000 range behind the scenes to give extra accuracy during progression. Because they are rounded down to be displayed a small change behind the scenes can manifest itself as a fairly big change on the screen. For example a player with 19 for finishing on the screen may have 9,050 behind the scenes. If they then drop to 8,950 during processing this is only a drop of 1 or 2% however on the screen it is the difference between 18 and 19 and so a red arrow is displayed and it looks like a drop of 5%. Rest assured though that for all processing the 'real' figure is used.
The skills have a 5% bonus per level, so Coaching 5 will boost positive changes by 25% - what this means is that if, behind the scenes in the 1-10,000 range, a player's finishing increases by 400 points it will actually increase by 500 points (the 400 plus the 25% boost.) If the player doesn't improve though the skill won't make him improve.
So when orange arrows were introduced we started to see these micro changes instead.
The other thing people are usually whining about is how strikers are losing something like finishing to gain tackling. This is not what is happening. He is losing finishing to bounce other attributes around maybe, but not to gain attributes like tackling.
The most important thing to understand is attributes are weighted so an important attribute costs more CA points than an unimportant one and some don’t cost anything at all!
Put simply physical attributes are generally the most costly. Pace and acceleration are the biggest cost for most players. Every wondered why so many medium potential youth players with high pace and acceleration are rubbish or not developing? The answer is because they have used up all their potential by having high pace because it is such a costly attribute to possess. So if you see a low potential player who has very high physical attributes then his career is over – that’s it folks, he has nothing left in him, he will not get much better. Most physical attributes are very costly because they are important to just about every position on the pitch.
The next thing to realise is that attributes are weighted depending on a player’s position. So it will cost a lot of CA points for a striker to increase his finishing, it might not cost as much for a winger to gain finishing and for a defender ? It’s free!
If a player gains an attribute which is not linked to his position then it doesn’t cost anything, no CA points, nothing!
I can’t confirm the accurate of this page but I reckon it’s about right:
http://koti.mbnet.fi/fmr2008/freeattributes.html
So what about high potential youths with orange arrows ? I'd need to see the players really, but there could be numerous reasons. The most likely is your JP is wrong or you are over estimating it. A 4* player might not actually have that high a PA, i'm not sure what the ranges are in all honesty but i'd guess what you see as a 4* could easily weigh in at about 130CA. Now if he has high physical attributes, he's used a crap load of PA points just by having those - pace, acceleration, jumping etc... So, he can't get any better!!
There's very very few super world class players in the database that have enough PA to sustain mega attributes all round. I think there are only 10 players in the FM10 database who are -10s. (170-200) CA. Think about this, we know the integrity of the database is maintained, so it will only ever generate enough high potential players to remain in line with what it started with, and then you have to wait for those to retire.
There's other factors too like, if you come across a youth player who is competent in several different positions you need to be wary again. It actually uses up CA points just to be able to play in all those positions!
If these points have been used up by being able to play many positions, it may mean less green arrows. There is a second huge impact to this too because you are losing lots of free attribute potential. Crossing for a MC is free, Crossing for a ML/R is not free. So if you find a player who can play MC RLC and you intend to use him in MC, bear in mind he has to use CA points for ‘pay’ for his crossing ability which may mean less potential to develop something such as passing.
Do you really think all 5* players are superstars ? Dream on. They are probably players you would associate with mid table Premier League teams in the majority of cases.
Finally, why is this a problem now ? It has always happened ! Ever since FML has existed, this has happened. It is not new.
Short Version
Does your player have orange arrows ? Ignore them, there is no problem here.
Long Version
(yeah i'm copying and pasting some bits of this from what i've wrote before)
Lets talk about player development first and how it works.
Potential Ability (PA) – Every player in the database has PA between 1-200 and a Current Ability (CA) between 1 and their PA level. PA does not change and if a player’s CA hits their PA then they will have become as good as they possibly can. As an example, Cristiano Ronaldo will have a PA around 195 and his CA will be around 190 as he is a world class player at his peak. On the other hand a player like Toni Kroos may have a PA of 170-190 but a CA of 145 because he has not hit his peak yet.
As attributes increase so does a player's CA, once all the PA points are used up then a player will have peaked and no more progression is possible.
Once a player has reached neared CA, this is when you usually start to see orange arrows. Players on FML are actually on training schedules behind the scenes. I don't know how these are set up but I suspect they are set to be conservative and generic and don't shape players as well as you can on the FM series.
So even when a player has reached his potential ability, he will continue to 'develop', so a striker is probably still training something like passing in the background and one day he's learnt to pass a bit better so passing increases. But he doesn't have any ability points left to learn this new passing ability, so something else goes down a little bit to free up the points.
This is known as attribute bounce. Now, I can understand why people might be a little bit confused why a striker is losing something such as composure to get better at dribbling. But the attribute change is tiny ! It's NOT going to change how that player performs on the pitch to any noticeable extent. If you have a striker with 16 finishing and it's gone down by 0.04, he has lost 0.25% of his finishing ability. Think about that, how is that going to change his performance ? erm, it's not ! Things such as morale, home advantage, tactics and about a dozen other things influence how these attributes interact with the ME to a much larger extent.
Orange arrows are one of the most useful tools you have as a manager. Once you see them starting to appear you know your player isn't going to get much better so you can make a decision on whether you want to keep him, knowing he wont get much better, or whether you want to move him on and bring someone better in. It looks like we are actually going to lose this knowledge due to people moaning about arrows now.
Before we had orange arrows and just red arrows, it used to work like this:
Attributes are displayed in the 1-20 range on the screen they are actually stored in the 1-10,000 range behind the scenes to give extra accuracy during progression. Because they are rounded down to be displayed a small change behind the scenes can manifest itself as a fairly big change on the screen. For example a player with 19 for finishing on the screen may have 9,050 behind the scenes. If they then drop to 8,950 during processing this is only a drop of 1 or 2% however on the screen it is the difference between 18 and 19 and so a red arrow is displayed and it looks like a drop of 5%. Rest assured though that for all processing the 'real' figure is used.
The skills have a 5% bonus per level, so Coaching 5 will boost positive changes by 25% - what this means is that if, behind the scenes in the 1-10,000 range, a player's finishing increases by 400 points it will actually increase by 500 points (the 400 plus the 25% boost.) If the player doesn't improve though the skill won't make him improve.
So when orange arrows were introduced we started to see these micro changes instead.
The other thing people are usually whining about is how strikers are losing something like finishing to gain tackling. This is not what is happening. He is losing finishing to bounce other attributes around maybe, but not to gain attributes like tackling.
The most important thing to understand is attributes are weighted so an important attribute costs more CA points than an unimportant one and some don’t cost anything at all!
Put simply physical attributes are generally the most costly. Pace and acceleration are the biggest cost for most players. Every wondered why so many medium potential youth players with high pace and acceleration are rubbish or not developing? The answer is because they have used up all their potential by having high pace because it is such a costly attribute to possess. So if you see a low potential player who has very high physical attributes then his career is over – that’s it folks, he has nothing left in him, he will not get much better. Most physical attributes are very costly because they are important to just about every position on the pitch.
The next thing to realise is that attributes are weighted depending on a player’s position. So it will cost a lot of CA points for a striker to increase his finishing, it might not cost as much for a winger to gain finishing and for a defender ? It’s free!
If a player gains an attribute which is not linked to his position then it doesn’t cost anything, no CA points, nothing!
I can’t confirm the accurate of this page but I reckon it’s about right:
http://koti.mbnet.fi/fmr2008/freeattributes.html
So what about high potential youths with orange arrows ? I'd need to see the players really, but there could be numerous reasons. The most likely is your JP is wrong or you are over estimating it. A 4* player might not actually have that high a PA, i'm not sure what the ranges are in all honesty but i'd guess what you see as a 4* could easily weigh in at about 130CA. Now if he has high physical attributes, he's used a crap load of PA points just by having those - pace, acceleration, jumping etc... So, he can't get any better!!
There's very very few super world class players in the database that have enough PA to sustain mega attributes all round. I think there are only 10 players in the FM10 database who are -10s. (170-200) CA. Think about this, we know the integrity of the database is maintained, so it will only ever generate enough high potential players to remain in line with what it started with, and then you have to wait for those to retire.
There's other factors too like, if you come across a youth player who is competent in several different positions you need to be wary again. It actually uses up CA points just to be able to play in all those positions!
If these points have been used up by being able to play many positions, it may mean less green arrows. There is a second huge impact to this too because you are losing lots of free attribute potential. Crossing for a MC is free, Crossing for a ML/R is not free. So if you find a player who can play MC RLC and you intend to use him in MC, bear in mind he has to use CA points for ‘pay’ for his crossing ability which may mean less potential to develop something such as passing.
Do you really think all 5* players are superstars ? Dream on. They are probably players you would associate with mid table Premier League teams in the majority of cases.
Finally, why is this a problem now ? It has always happened ! Ever since FML has existed, this has happened. It is not new.
Wednesday 14 July 2010
Low and Behold
So my first half season has finished in Turk.
Pretty much business as usual then ! I couldn't face playing my last couple of games after the shit storm the ME was throwing at me. I think I literally had 2 strikers injured every single game for my last 8 matches in a row. Less said about the game where I had 8 CCCS the better. I had about 5 strikers out at one point along with half of my midfield ! Funny thing was I had no injuries all season prior to this and have pretty much blitzed physio 3. With the season drawing to a close, I couldn't see any point bringing in fresh faces so started games with 2 players on the bench.
It's quite comical with poorer players, the games don't actually look any different to when you are playing in a top tier. The only difference is you have about a million more chances, and miss them all.
I'd picked up a 32 year old striker who was pretty hot in my initial squad. He was my money man and banged in 30 goals in 34 games for me, bringing the title home. Alas, he was dying badly and his physicals were taking a turn for the worse.
Rather inconveniently, due to my striker crisis, but also fortuitously, someone took up the £1m auto accept I had set on him. Rule 1 of FML - No matter how stupid you are, there is always someone even more stupid ;) So he won me the title and brought me in about £800k pure profit, not including prize money.
This leaves me with a rather healthy looking £3.4m projected to spend in wage auctions to build a squad to win the lower tiers. The aim is still to win a top tier title within 3 seasons. Obviously the last couple of weeks don't count, so it's 3 seasons from the start of next. I reckon the EFA offers my best chance of progression at this stage, so i'm going to head off there and battle my way up the leagues.
I'm tempted not to bother learning any more skills as I don't think there's much point, i've already got pretty much all I need.
The only problem is i've actually found a girl who is even more insane than me, so i'm going to be busy most of the weekend while wage auctions are on so squad building could be problematic.
As for T-Bag Town, not even logged in to see where I finished, I suspect my AI didn't do me proud as I didn't set the match plans to activate.
Pretty much business as usual then ! I couldn't face playing my last couple of games after the shit storm the ME was throwing at me. I think I literally had 2 strikers injured every single game for my last 8 matches in a row. Less said about the game where I had 8 CCCS the better. I had about 5 strikers out at one point along with half of my midfield ! Funny thing was I had no injuries all season prior to this and have pretty much blitzed physio 3. With the season drawing to a close, I couldn't see any point bringing in fresh faces so started games with 2 players on the bench.
It's quite comical with poorer players, the games don't actually look any different to when you are playing in a top tier. The only difference is you have about a million more chances, and miss them all.
I'd picked up a 32 year old striker who was pretty hot in my initial squad. He was my money man and banged in 30 goals in 34 games for me, bringing the title home. Alas, he was dying badly and his physicals were taking a turn for the worse.
Rather inconveniently, due to my striker crisis, but also fortuitously, someone took up the £1m auto accept I had set on him. Rule 1 of FML - No matter how stupid you are, there is always someone even more stupid ;) So he won me the title and brought me in about £800k pure profit, not including prize money.
This leaves me with a rather healthy looking £3.4m projected to spend in wage auctions to build a squad to win the lower tiers. The aim is still to win a top tier title within 3 seasons. Obviously the last couple of weeks don't count, so it's 3 seasons from the start of next. I reckon the EFA offers my best chance of progression at this stage, so i'm going to head off there and battle my way up the leagues.
I'm tempted not to bother learning any more skills as I don't think there's much point, i've already got pretty much all I need.
The only problem is i've actually found a girl who is even more insane than me, so i'm going to be busy most of the weekend while wage auctions are on so squad building could be problematic.
As for T-Bag Town, not even logged in to see where I finished, I suspect my AI didn't do me proud as I didn't set the match plans to activate.
Tuesday 13 July 2010
Stayin' Alive
So here's another tactical insight for the night, seen as i'm still feeling generous.
What to do in games you are losing ? What to do in games you are playing really bad in ?
First off, use the tactical changes I have suggested in my recent post.
But, the main thing you should do to comeback and win a game is - nothing. The ME is that cool. There is a kind of logic to it I suppose. Do not panic, have supreme confidence you are going to win the game no matter what the score is, i've seen it all on FML, anything is possible.
Do not go attacking.
Do not make pointless subs.
Even consider going more defensive - as in playing narrower, FML makes that much sense!
Look back at your recent results, how many games involved a clean sheet? FML doesn't like clean sheets. You are more than likely going to score a goal, once you get one, the flood gates will probably open.
For no apparent reason, the losing team always seems to get a massive boost around the 50th minute regardless of what player confidence is doing. This is the time you are likely to score and should exploit this, once one goes in your team will keep hammering forward without you having to change a single thing. You just need to wait for this period of the game and don't make things worse prior to this.
At half time, you can sub off one player who is averaging <5.x. Do not sub defenders, do no bother subbing your DM, NEVER sub your money man striker. Do not sub your corner taker (assuming you have a good one)
If you have had lots of long shots, make sure you go turn them onto rarely in all individual player instructions.
Lets take some examples.
Game #1 - It's 1-1, i'm away from home, i'm playing awful. I've made all my tactical changes and some sensible subs but nothing has changed, nothing is working. My main striker is having a mare, i've had players off injured and i'm struggling. Kept calm, stayed on standard strategy, play narrow, pump ball into box. Then it comes, it always comes... 80th minute they get a player sent off. Your time is now. Take off narrow and go attacking, score 2 goals in 4 minutes and the game is won. Wait for the opportunity, there's always an opportunity, then exploit it.
Game #2 - I'm away to 3rd position, who look like a strong team. I'm 2-0 down and generally getting a pasting. I've done my normal tactical changes but nothing else. 70th minute I get my goal, you always get a goal, FML doesn't like clean sheets. Do nothing, 86th minute I equalise. I know the game is now won as a 93rd minute corner goes in.
Obviously this is less likely to work if you are about 4-0 down, but if you are playing my away tactics then that isn't likely to happen.
I'd suggest having some inspiring mp3s to listen to at the time.
Mitigate comebacks against yourself by playing as I have suggested previously.
So in summary, don't spunk your load too early. Just sit back, wait, and the wonder which is the ME will do most of the work for you. Don't lose games by making pointless tactical changes, don't bother going attacking unless it is appropriate.
What to do in games you are losing ? What to do in games you are playing really bad in ?
First off, use the tactical changes I have suggested in my recent post.
But, the main thing you should do to comeback and win a game is - nothing. The ME is that cool. There is a kind of logic to it I suppose. Do not panic, have supreme confidence you are going to win the game no matter what the score is, i've seen it all on FML, anything is possible.
Do not go attacking.
Do not make pointless subs.
Even consider going more defensive - as in playing narrower, FML makes that much sense!
Look back at your recent results, how many games involved a clean sheet? FML doesn't like clean sheets. You are more than likely going to score a goal, once you get one, the flood gates will probably open.
For no apparent reason, the losing team always seems to get a massive boost around the 50th minute regardless of what player confidence is doing. This is the time you are likely to score and should exploit this, once one goes in your team will keep hammering forward without you having to change a single thing. You just need to wait for this period of the game and don't make things worse prior to this.
At half time, you can sub off one player who is averaging <5.x. Do not sub defenders, do no bother subbing your DM, NEVER sub your money man striker. Do not sub your corner taker (assuming you have a good one)
If you have had lots of long shots, make sure you go turn them onto rarely in all individual player instructions.
Lets take some examples.
Game #1 - It's 1-1, i'm away from home, i'm playing awful. I've made all my tactical changes and some sensible subs but nothing has changed, nothing is working. My main striker is having a mare, i've had players off injured and i'm struggling. Kept calm, stayed on standard strategy, play narrow, pump ball into box. Then it comes, it always comes... 80th minute they get a player sent off. Your time is now. Take off narrow and go attacking, score 2 goals in 4 minutes and the game is won. Wait for the opportunity, there's always an opportunity, then exploit it.
Game #2 - I'm away to 3rd position, who look like a strong team. I'm 2-0 down and generally getting a pasting. I've done my normal tactical changes but nothing else. 70th minute I get my goal, you always get a goal, FML doesn't like clean sheets. Do nothing, 86th minute I equalise. I know the game is now won as a 93rd minute corner goes in.
Obviously this is less likely to work if you are about 4-0 down, but if you are playing my away tactics then that isn't likely to happen.
I'd suggest having some inspiring mp3s to listen to at the time.
Mitigate comebacks against yourself by playing as I have suggested previously.
So in summary, don't spunk your load too early. Just sit back, wait, and the wonder which is the ME will do most of the work for you. Don't lose games by making pointless tactical changes, don't bother going attacking unless it is appropriate.
Sunday 11 July 2010
Going Missing
I've quite possibly had the most bizarre weekend of my entire life, needless to say it's going to result in less FML time.
Main account remains cancelled, T-Bag Town is due to expire very shortly... The end of an era :(
Anyway, I am still "on a mission" to win the Premier League in 3 seasons with a new account with zero skills.
Have you read my last post yet ?
I signed a team as per my attribute templates, and while I have been away my AI has managed to play 14 games, not lost a single one and of course i'm sitting pretty at the top of the Reception FA while sitting 2nd in the bronze rankings. I haven't set up any match plans, I haven't done anything except sign a team as per what i've been banging on about for several months. I've not even bothered learning any new skills for the last few days.
It's too easy.... Game on, the Premiership title is calling. The problem is still going to be how much time I have available to do this!
Main account remains cancelled, T-Bag Town is due to expire very shortly... The end of an era :(
Anyway, I am still "on a mission" to win the Premier League in 3 seasons with a new account with zero skills.
Have you read my last post yet ?
I signed a team as per my attribute templates, and while I have been away my AI has managed to play 14 games, not lost a single one and of course i'm sitting pretty at the top of the Reception FA while sitting 2nd in the bronze rankings. I haven't set up any match plans, I haven't done anything except sign a team as per what i've been banging on about for several months. I've not even bothered learning any new skills for the last few days.
It's too easy.... Game on, the Premiership title is calling. The problem is still going to be how much time I have available to do this!
Friday 9 July 2010
Is it 'cos i'm cool
Oh well, seen as I have given up, here it is, how to be as awesome as me.
This is a somewhat an amalgamation of a previous post, combined with other stuff I have learnt plus some new stuff, but here it is:
How to win stuff:
The Formation
Set up a simple 4-3-3. You can use the tactics creator to do this. You want to set it to be more fluid, standard strategy. Passing should be set to more direct and roaming set to stick to position.
The Tactics
Set all individual long shots to rarely. If you have a midfielder with especially good long shots you may want to allow one or two players to be set to sometimes.
Set corner aim to far post. You want to be taking inswinging corners so a corner taker for the left foot and one for the right would be useful.
You want your best header on attack far post and your second best header on challenge GK (both of these must be DCs, it rarely works with other players) and a third player on near post flick, a defender isn’t essential for this. Ensure you have plenty of players back so you don't get caught on the break - at least 3.
Set free kick aim to best header
For defending corners, the default instructions actually work fine most of the time, just ensure you that you don’t have more than one player forward when defending. You can use mark specific on opposition instructions if there’s an especially problematic player.
The Players
For all players you should avoid anyone with stamina below 14, you can compromise on DCs.
Technical and mental attributes are not especially important, it's all about the physicals, you want players with very strong physical attributes.
Fullbacks should have the following attributes. Pace & Acceleration must be at least 16 (the higher the better) and tackling around 13+ will do. Nothing else really matters but other defensive attributes are useful, but mainly look for the physicals. Jumping will help improve average ratings but it’s not actually that essential for a decent full back.
Central Defence - Heading/Jumping - at least 17/17, this is important for corners. Pace & Acceleration should be at least 12. (higher is preferable but hard to find on a budget) Strength is probably the next most important thing followed by tackling and marking but they are of less importance. Filter on heading/jumping at 17 and tackling 14 then pick the best. Your best defender needs to be your corner banger, he needs to be a good quality DC with jumping ability. You can compromise with any old crap for the 2nd DC as long as they have heading, jumping and decent physicals in other areas.
FCC - This is your money man. This needs to be your best player, he must have pace & acceleration at least 16+ (preferably higher) with strong dribbling ability. Finishing, composure etc are not important although they are obviously desirable. Also look for flair and off the ball. The faster and strong the better, this is the key. Remember, this is the player you need to break the bank for, this is the man that is going to win you games, don’t get it wrong.
Forwards, right and left - Pay attention to the footedness of the players, you want to ensure you have a left and right footer if possible. You can sometimes find players who are massively right footed who can play fine on the left, but there aappears to be absolutely no rhyme or reason to why some players can do it and others can’t. Experiment, chop and change until you find someone who can play on the left if they are not left footed. Again, pace & acceleration is required here, you want 17/17 ideally with good dribbling attribute. Nothing else really matters but again, finishing and the likes are desirable.
Midfield - Doesn't really seem to make much difference what you do here. Just go for the physicals, as strong as possible. You obviously want to be looking for good passers and those with beneficial midfield attributes, dribbling is beneficial too. You want a DM in the middle then and at least one decent AMC on one of the sides. I've always been a bit crap at finding midfield players tbh, what i'm trying to say is go for someone who's reasonable in midfield but has very strong physicals.
Make sure one of the above players has at least 17 in corner taking and ideally you need someone who can take a free kick.
You should pick a captain who has at least 16 in influence AND is who is going to average high most games. So don’t pick some guff striker as he’s likely to be inconsistent. A defender or a top MC is a good choice usually.
Duck N Dive
Also known as DnD ;) Ok something you need to understand now. The quality of your team and tactics actually has very little bearing on the result at all. This is absolutely crucial, you must manage your form. It's all about the form.
Therefore you need to ensure you have good form and mitigate any potential dips. You have a massive advantage in home games so you need to start your league campaign by playing a weak team at home to get a strong result. Pick your games carefully, you ideally want to play as many home games, against weak teams, as possible to start you off. It doesn't matter if you leave yourself with a load of away games as you will be on top form by then.
I really can’t stress this enough. This may require you to be a massive arse, someone challenged you to a game, is it away? Does it look tough ? Start a CPU game to avoid losing AI rights. Sit in DND and check the league table/online managers and target the weak teams, target the home games against the weak teams. Get at least 4-5 games in against teams you are fairly sure you can beat. Spotted a manager who is 'away' ? Get him challenged if it's green balled to make sure you win AI then play him while he's offline.
Hopefully you have now won all of your early home games, now in top form. You are almost unbeatable so challenge the good teams now ! If you go more than 2 games without winning - be that a draw or a loss. STOP !!!!!! Get yourself on DND. Stop what you are doing, you are about to enter bad form. You need to find someone bad to play or someone suffering injuries, someone else bad form. Duck in and out of DND and snipe your targets, you MUST get yourself back to winning ways or you are screwed.
If you are serious about this, you need to aim for 0% AI. Any game played against your AI is a serious disadvantage as you wont be able to deploy the correct tactical changes in game. You may need to be an arse again here. Take note of what time AI is awarded, make sure you are online and auto start as soon as possible. If you have one of those pesky managers who are constantly starting AI games, then add them as a friend and sit there ready to pounce as soon as you see their match has finished. Don't forget to remove them and neg feedback them afterwards ;)
Pay attention to who is injured and suspended for your team, try and play home games when you have players missing and try and snipe the better teams when they are having injury problems.
Matches
So what to do in matches ? This is quite key and one of the reasons why you need to play your games because you can’t replicate much of this with match plans.
Once you have submitted your team, do not click kick off, instead wait for the opposition manager to submit their team. Now you need to set opposition instructions and show every offensive opposition player onto their weaker foot. This is a right ballache, but do it. I don’t think many people actually do this but it helps massively. In a 433 just the strikers will do and any dangerous midfielders, in a 442 you want the strikers and wingers. Just use common sense – but don’t forget to do it, every game!
Home Games
Due to the strength of home form, you should be looking to win every single home game regardless of the strength of the opponent. Start the match doing show opposition onto weaker foot and shout run at defence. If you are not dominating after 10 minutes, so you haven’t had many shots, they have had too many shots, whack on hassle opponents. Is it still going bad ? Shout play narrower. Is it still going bad ? Drop your MC into DMC. Is it still going bad ? Replace run at defence with ump ball into the box if your players are not getting enough space. Have you had lots of shots but haven’t scored ? Is your FCC averaging badly ? Rotate him with one who is averaging higher. Is it still going bad ? You’re doing it wrong! You can look to replace a striker at HT if they are averaging <6.00 but don’t bother with other positions.
Away Games
Okay, you are not trying to win these games, you are trying not to lose them. A draw is a result. You need to stifle play, stop them playing, then you will hopefully win the game on the counter.
Show players onto weaker foot (never forget this!!) Start the game with hassle opponents and play narrower.
Watch the game, are you getting space ? Add in run at defence. Is it going bad ? Use pump ball into box instead. Consider dropping your MC back into DMC if needs be. It doesn’t actually seem to matter if they can’t play DMC or not.
General
Circa 60th minute you need to start looking to make your substitutions. Have you ignored my earlier advice and bought some low stamina players ? They need taking off about now so you can continue pressing and pressuring. Unless they are playing exceptionally well consider replacing them. Replace any strikers who are not contributing much, except your money man – you NEVER sub your money man no matter what his average rating is.
Always leave one sub unused in case you get an injury. You should only use your final sub if you are desperate.
Regardless of venue, if you are winning past the 60th minute and the other team is starting to come into the game more, shout play narrower. You can continue attacking just fine with this shout but it stifles them.
If you are dominating the game but not winning past 60th minute go to control strategy, you can leave play narrower on, I know this is counter intuitive If you are still not winning go attacking 75th minute and overload from about 85 minutes. But he careful, only use this in games where you are the better team.
If it gets to the 75th+ minute and you have clearly won the game, then take of hassle opponents to reduce the risk of injury.
Some games you are just going to lose, accept it. Don’t go all out and suffer a bigger loss than you need to. It hurts form and morale. Most of the time you can just hang tight anyway, if you are on good form you are pretty much unbeatable anyway and will score a last second equaliser or some crap.
Use youth or CPU games to increase condition after a player comes back from injury, don't play any games until they are 96%+ fit. Even if it is a senior player, a youth game magically increase the condition of a player returning from injury.
Morale seems to randomly increase about 10 minutes after playing a match regardless of whether you won it or not, so consider waiting a short while before jumping into the next match.
Final thoughts
Player ability doesn’t really count for much, i’ve consistently being one of the lower ability teams in every league that I have played in and consistently finished at or near the top. You don’t need good players, you don’t need expensive players, you need the RIGHT players, you need the right blend and that’s it.
If the above doesn’t work, then you have the wrong players.
This is a somewhat an amalgamation of a previous post, combined with other stuff I have learnt plus some new stuff, but here it is:
How to win stuff:
The Formation
Set up a simple 4-3-3. You can use the tactics creator to do this. You want to set it to be more fluid, standard strategy. Passing should be set to more direct and roaming set to stick to position.
The Tactics
Set all individual long shots to rarely. If you have a midfielder with especially good long shots you may want to allow one or two players to be set to sometimes.
Set corner aim to far post. You want to be taking inswinging corners so a corner taker for the left foot and one for the right would be useful.
You want your best header on attack far post and your second best header on challenge GK (both of these must be DCs, it rarely works with other players) and a third player on near post flick, a defender isn’t essential for this. Ensure you have plenty of players back so you don't get caught on the break - at least 3.
Set free kick aim to best header
For defending corners, the default instructions actually work fine most of the time, just ensure you that you don’t have more than one player forward when defending. You can use mark specific on opposition instructions if there’s an especially problematic player.
The Players
For all players you should avoid anyone with stamina below 14, you can compromise on DCs.
Technical and mental attributes are not especially important, it's all about the physicals, you want players with very strong physical attributes.
Fullbacks should have the following attributes. Pace & Acceleration must be at least 16 (the higher the better) and tackling around 13+ will do. Nothing else really matters but other defensive attributes are useful, but mainly look for the physicals. Jumping will help improve average ratings but it’s not actually that essential for a decent full back.
Central Defence - Heading/Jumping - at least 17/17, this is important for corners. Pace & Acceleration should be at least 12. (higher is preferable but hard to find on a budget) Strength is probably the next most important thing followed by tackling and marking but they are of less importance. Filter on heading/jumping at 17 and tackling 14 then pick the best. Your best defender needs to be your corner banger, he needs to be a good quality DC with jumping ability. You can compromise with any old crap for the 2nd DC as long as they have heading, jumping and decent physicals in other areas.
FCC - This is your money man. This needs to be your best player, he must have pace & acceleration at least 16+ (preferably higher) with strong dribbling ability. Finishing, composure etc are not important although they are obviously desirable. Also look for flair and off the ball. The faster and strong the better, this is the key. Remember, this is the player you need to break the bank for, this is the man that is going to win you games, don’t get it wrong.
Forwards, right and left - Pay attention to the footedness of the players, you want to ensure you have a left and right footer if possible. You can sometimes find players who are massively right footed who can play fine on the left, but there aappears to be absolutely no rhyme or reason to why some players can do it and others can’t. Experiment, chop and change until you find someone who can play on the left if they are not left footed. Again, pace & acceleration is required here, you want 17/17 ideally with good dribbling attribute. Nothing else really matters but again, finishing and the likes are desirable.
Midfield - Doesn't really seem to make much difference what you do here. Just go for the physicals, as strong as possible. You obviously want to be looking for good passers and those with beneficial midfield attributes, dribbling is beneficial too. You want a DM in the middle then and at least one decent AMC on one of the sides. I've always been a bit crap at finding midfield players tbh, what i'm trying to say is go for someone who's reasonable in midfield but has very strong physicals.
Make sure one of the above players has at least 17 in corner taking and ideally you need someone who can take a free kick.
You should pick a captain who has at least 16 in influence AND is who is going to average high most games. So don’t pick some guff striker as he’s likely to be inconsistent. A defender or a top MC is a good choice usually.
Duck N Dive
Also known as DnD ;) Ok something you need to understand now. The quality of your team and tactics actually has very little bearing on the result at all. This is absolutely crucial, you must manage your form. It's all about the form.
Therefore you need to ensure you have good form and mitigate any potential dips. You have a massive advantage in home games so you need to start your league campaign by playing a weak team at home to get a strong result. Pick your games carefully, you ideally want to play as many home games, against weak teams, as possible to start you off. It doesn't matter if you leave yourself with a load of away games as you will be on top form by then.
I really can’t stress this enough. This may require you to be a massive arse, someone challenged you to a game, is it away? Does it look tough ? Start a CPU game to avoid losing AI rights. Sit in DND and check the league table/online managers and target the weak teams, target the home games against the weak teams. Get at least 4-5 games in against teams you are fairly sure you can beat. Spotted a manager who is 'away' ? Get him challenged if it's green balled to make sure you win AI then play him while he's offline.
Hopefully you have now won all of your early home games, now in top form. You are almost unbeatable so challenge the good teams now ! If you go more than 2 games without winning - be that a draw or a loss. STOP !!!!!! Get yourself on DND. Stop what you are doing, you are about to enter bad form. You need to find someone bad to play or someone suffering injuries, someone else bad form. Duck in and out of DND and snipe your targets, you MUST get yourself back to winning ways or you are screwed.
If you are serious about this, you need to aim for 0% AI. Any game played against your AI is a serious disadvantage as you wont be able to deploy the correct tactical changes in game. You may need to be an arse again here. Take note of what time AI is awarded, make sure you are online and auto start as soon as possible. If you have one of those pesky managers who are constantly starting AI games, then add them as a friend and sit there ready to pounce as soon as you see their match has finished. Don't forget to remove them and neg feedback them afterwards ;)
Pay attention to who is injured and suspended for your team, try and play home games when you have players missing and try and snipe the better teams when they are having injury problems.
Matches
So what to do in matches ? This is quite key and one of the reasons why you need to play your games because you can’t replicate much of this with match plans.
Once you have submitted your team, do not click kick off, instead wait for the opposition manager to submit their team. Now you need to set opposition instructions and show every offensive opposition player onto their weaker foot. This is a right ballache, but do it. I don’t think many people actually do this but it helps massively. In a 433 just the strikers will do and any dangerous midfielders, in a 442 you want the strikers and wingers. Just use common sense – but don’t forget to do it, every game!
Home Games
Due to the strength of home form, you should be looking to win every single home game regardless of the strength of the opponent. Start the match doing show opposition onto weaker foot and shout run at defence. If you are not dominating after 10 minutes, so you haven’t had many shots, they have had too many shots, whack on hassle opponents. Is it still going bad ? Shout play narrower. Is it still going bad ? Drop your MC into DMC. Is it still going bad ? Replace run at defence with ump ball into the box if your players are not getting enough space. Have you had lots of shots but haven’t scored ? Is your FCC averaging badly ? Rotate him with one who is averaging higher. Is it still going bad ? You’re doing it wrong! You can look to replace a striker at HT if they are averaging <6.00 but don’t bother with other positions.
Away Games
Okay, you are not trying to win these games, you are trying not to lose them. A draw is a result. You need to stifle play, stop them playing, then you will hopefully win the game on the counter.
Show players onto weaker foot (never forget this!!) Start the game with hassle opponents and play narrower.
Watch the game, are you getting space ? Add in run at defence. Is it going bad ? Use pump ball into box instead. Consider dropping your MC back into DMC if needs be. It doesn’t actually seem to matter if they can’t play DMC or not.
General
Circa 60th minute you need to start looking to make your substitutions. Have you ignored my earlier advice and bought some low stamina players ? They need taking off about now so you can continue pressing and pressuring. Unless they are playing exceptionally well consider replacing them. Replace any strikers who are not contributing much, except your money man – you NEVER sub your money man no matter what his average rating is.
Always leave one sub unused in case you get an injury. You should only use your final sub if you are desperate.
Regardless of venue, if you are winning past the 60th minute and the other team is starting to come into the game more, shout play narrower. You can continue attacking just fine with this shout but it stifles them.
If you are dominating the game but not winning past 60th minute go to control strategy, you can leave play narrower on, I know this is counter intuitive If you are still not winning go attacking 75th minute and overload from about 85 minutes. But he careful, only use this in games where you are the better team.
If it gets to the 75th+ minute and you have clearly won the game, then take of hassle opponents to reduce the risk of injury.
Some games you are just going to lose, accept it. Don’t go all out and suffer a bigger loss than you need to. It hurts form and morale. Most of the time you can just hang tight anyway, if you are on good form you are pretty much unbeatable anyway and will score a last second equaliser or some crap.
Use youth or CPU games to increase condition after a player comes back from injury, don't play any games until they are 96%+ fit. Even if it is a senior player, a youth game magically increase the condition of a player returning from injury.
Morale seems to randomly increase about 10 minutes after playing a match regardless of whether you won it or not, so consider waiting a short while before jumping into the next match.
Final thoughts
Player ability doesn’t really count for much, i’ve consistently being one of the lower ability teams in every league that I have played in and consistently finished at or near the top. You don’t need good players, you don’t need expensive players, you need the RIGHT players, you need the right blend and that’s it.
If the above doesn’t work, then you have the wrong players.
Thursday 8 July 2010
Had Enough
Game over people. Main account is cancelled.
Completely fed up. The key to being successful at FML is to dedicate a huge amount of time to being online, doing nothing.
This season I had to move FA as I was going to be away for 5 days so obviously when I come back i've not really got AI over anyone and in the traditional FA there's only few games a day. So you log on, play those then there's no reason to stay on so you log off, which means you lose AI to rest of your games and there's no reason to log on again!
So this season i'm not going to win the league due to the fact i've lost AI to too many teams and AGAIN due to not being able to beat bottom of the league in utterly farcical games. Results versus bottom of the league have decided every single title in every single season so far.
Still i've won 4 top tier FA leagues and runners up twice and should get runners up again this season so i've done decent enough without any good players. But it's "too easy" i'm just bored. There's absolutely no skill to the game any more because of the state of the ME. There's absolutely no sign of any change or even admission of a problem with it.
It's so simple, jumping, pace, acceleration, 433, play narrow, set up set pieces, make sure you don't lose AI = win the league. I'm just bored of doing the same thing every single game because so little else works. But it actually takes a lot of time and effort to make sure you win AI to every game and to make sure you make all the correct tactical changes. It's a grind.
I was hoping for a fun busy engaging environment, but I can't actually play in the XFA due to this competition form crap. What's the point in playing in those games when my form is completely different to that of my FA form ? When I win every FA game but simply can't string two passes together in the XFA ? I'd enter every competition under the sun if I knew my team wasn't going to draw every game because I have bad minor form. Aside from this there isn't really any decent competitions to enter if you discount the quick plays ! I did mail a request a while back but never even got a response.
So i'm stuck, having to be on 6 hours a day so I can win the league, to simply play a couple of games a day. What am I doing ??
I'm not so fussed about all these youth teams doing so well. Well, I was when I was complaining about it January, only to be told the average CA of my team was only 20 points higher. I believe I said I could accept no possible explanation for losing to a team of 16 year olds.
To be honest there's not a lot wrong with the game now, it just discourages you from playing games due to the form crap and there's nothing else to do instead, no decent PvE or anything and most of my friends have already given up.
But do you know what the final straw has been ? The way they have fucked up the forums.... It just demonstrates the amazing ability SI have to take something which is good and mess it up.
I've still got the second sub I took out last week, so i'm going to carry on with that casually for now, as I reckon it might be fun bringing up a team through the lower divisions. But I suspect I will suffer the problems outlined above as in not being on enough to win AI.
Completely fed up. The key to being successful at FML is to dedicate a huge amount of time to being online, doing nothing.
This season I had to move FA as I was going to be away for 5 days so obviously when I come back i've not really got AI over anyone and in the traditional FA there's only few games a day. So you log on, play those then there's no reason to stay on so you log off, which means you lose AI to rest of your games and there's no reason to log on again!
So this season i'm not going to win the league due to the fact i've lost AI to too many teams and AGAIN due to not being able to beat bottom of the league in utterly farcical games. Results versus bottom of the league have decided every single title in every single season so far.
Still i've won 4 top tier FA leagues and runners up twice and should get runners up again this season so i've done decent enough without any good players. But it's "too easy" i'm just bored. There's absolutely no skill to the game any more because of the state of the ME. There's absolutely no sign of any change or even admission of a problem with it.
It's so simple, jumping, pace, acceleration, 433, play narrow, set up set pieces, make sure you don't lose AI = win the league. I'm just bored of doing the same thing every single game because so little else works. But it actually takes a lot of time and effort to make sure you win AI to every game and to make sure you make all the correct tactical changes. It's a grind.
I was hoping for a fun busy engaging environment, but I can't actually play in the XFA due to this competition form crap. What's the point in playing in those games when my form is completely different to that of my FA form ? When I win every FA game but simply can't string two passes together in the XFA ? I'd enter every competition under the sun if I knew my team wasn't going to draw every game because I have bad minor form. Aside from this there isn't really any decent competitions to enter if you discount the quick plays ! I did mail a request a while back but never even got a response.
So i'm stuck, having to be on 6 hours a day so I can win the league, to simply play a couple of games a day. What am I doing ??
I'm not so fussed about all these youth teams doing so well. Well, I was when I was complaining about it January, only to be told the average CA of my team was only 20 points higher. I believe I said I could accept no possible explanation for losing to a team of 16 year olds.
To be honest there's not a lot wrong with the game now, it just discourages you from playing games due to the form crap and there's nothing else to do instead, no decent PvE or anything and most of my friends have already given up.
But do you know what the final straw has been ? The way they have fucked up the forums.... It just demonstrates the amazing ability SI have to take something which is good and mess it up.
I've still got the second sub I took out last week, so i'm going to carry on with that casually for now, as I reckon it might be fun bringing up a team through the lower divisions. But I suspect I will suffer the problems outlined above as in not being on enough to win AI.
Friday 2 July 2010
On a Mission
So the main account moved to the to the Traditional FA while I was away for a while, so it's like a couple of games a day.
So I decided to crank up a second account in one of the launch GWs, so I find my self in Turkyimaz (I think)
Signed up an initial squad as per my attribute templates, loads of choice and didn't really need to compromise in any area. Duplicated the tactics from my my main team, played a few games, looking good.
The mission is, win the Premier League within 3 seasons. This will most likely require the EFA for quick progression and perhaps some strategy FA hopping. I reckon I could easily win the 3rd tier of an FA with the squad i've got now in all honesty.
But i'm projected £1.7m already and wage auctions are coming up before the season starts ! I can't see how this can possibly go wrong, I should easily be able to put together a Championship quality squad if I have the time.
I've created a new account too, so no skills. This can't catch up sentiment is bollocks, skills stuff is bollocks. Premiership Champions within 3 seasons, it's happening. Anyone want to take the bet I wont do it ?
So I decided to crank up a second account in one of the launch GWs, so I find my self in Turkyimaz (I think)
Signed up an initial squad as per my attribute templates, loads of choice and didn't really need to compromise in any area. Duplicated the tactics from my my main team, played a few games, looking good.
The mission is, win the Premier League within 3 seasons. This will most likely require the EFA for quick progression and perhaps some strategy FA hopping. I reckon I could easily win the 3rd tier of an FA with the squad i've got now in all honesty.
But i'm projected £1.7m already and wage auctions are coming up before the season starts ! I can't see how this can possibly go wrong, I should easily be able to put together a Championship quality squad if I have the time.
I've created a new account too, so no skills. This can't catch up sentiment is bollocks, skills stuff is bollocks. Premiership Champions within 3 seasons, it's happening. Anyone want to take the bet I wont do it ?
Thursday 1 July 2010
I'm Alright Me
I have returned, from the greatest week ever, so there's not likely to be any rage for a while. I wasn't even feeling mad when I logged in expecting to find my team had lost every game while I was away. In a strange turn of events, they had actually won every single game. I've not got AI over anyone but my match plans seem to be working and i'm just winning them all so it seems I don't really need to play.
Anyway, I have to laugh. Looking everyone who is still complaining about the ME pretty much everywhere, but what about me ? The whole reason I created this blog in the first place, and the reason I revived it was due to my hatred of the ME. Well, actually, i'm loving it ! I can't seem to lose.
But looking at the complaints, it's all stuff myself and others were complaining about over six months ago on the beta forum. Look back to my old posts on here in February and I was complaining about youth teams being too good, corner goals, random results,433, while others had raised very valid concerns about physical attributes.
After it taking around 2 months to get the outside the corner box goal being acknowledged as a bug and then only when it came up in FM10 (There would have been outcry if this went live) I realised giving ME feedback was actually completely pointless. It seems to be deemed that results on FM10 make sense therefore it must be completely fine for FML when totally different circumstances occur.
How many teams on FM10 have players with all high jumping ? All youth teams ? All playing 433 etc ? It doesn't happen...
So anyway, I took everything that I had learnt, that I and others had feedback, that was completely ignored and used it to my advantage to create a nice little team. To be fair I don't have all high jumpers or anything, but I coped just fine with a 16k DC in defence for 4 seasons and funnily enough he's STILL better than my £2m DC. Not lost a game again all season yet, P13 W12 D1 with a very average team and only one big star player.
Seriously, don't hold your breath waiting for things to be fixed, i've been waiting 6 months. If you can't beat them.... join them, win some games and enjoy :) I'm really hoping they DON'T fix the ME! This is like when I had my 460 all over again, the ME was shit but I couldn't lose apart from when I got BSed.
I'm pretty sure I have this cracked and i'd post up a total guide if I had time but people will no doubt moan when it doesn't work for them.
22 days left on my subscription, I think I probably will renew for a while as winning is always fun.
Anyway, I have to laugh. Looking everyone who is still complaining about the ME pretty much everywhere, but what about me ? The whole reason I created this blog in the first place, and the reason I revived it was due to my hatred of the ME. Well, actually, i'm loving it ! I can't seem to lose.
But looking at the complaints, it's all stuff myself and others were complaining about over six months ago on the beta forum. Look back to my old posts on here in February and I was complaining about youth teams being too good, corner goals, random results,433, while others had raised very valid concerns about physical attributes.
After it taking around 2 months to get the outside the corner box goal being acknowledged as a bug and then only when it came up in FM10 (There would have been outcry if this went live) I realised giving ME feedback was actually completely pointless. It seems to be deemed that results on FM10 make sense therefore it must be completely fine for FML when totally different circumstances occur.
How many teams on FM10 have players with all high jumping ? All youth teams ? All playing 433 etc ? It doesn't happen...
So anyway, I took everything that I had learnt, that I and others had feedback, that was completely ignored and used it to my advantage to create a nice little team. To be fair I don't have all high jumpers or anything, but I coped just fine with a 16k DC in defence for 4 seasons and funnily enough he's STILL better than my £2m DC. Not lost a game again all season yet, P13 W12 D1 with a very average team and only one big star player.
Seriously, don't hold your breath waiting for things to be fixed, i've been waiting 6 months. If you can't beat them.... join them, win some games and enjoy :) I'm really hoping they DON'T fix the ME! This is like when I had my 460 all over again, the ME was shit but I couldn't lose apart from when I got BSed.
I'm pretty sure I have this cracked and i'd post up a total guide if I had time but people will no doubt moan when it doesn't work for them.
22 days left on my subscription, I think I probably will renew for a while as winning is always fun.
Monday 21 June 2010
Holiday
Oh, i'm rather excited, Wednesday at 1am I begin my adventure to Glastonbury. The eagled eyed have probably noticed all my blog titles are song names, I likes my music. Alas the line up is shit, but that's not what it's about... I'm concerned how my car is going to cope with the 300 cans which are currently loaded...
Anyway, in anticipation of this event I have moved FA. I went to the easiest looking FA, why wouldn't I ? With one problem, my main rival who panned me in the last game of the season to take EFA run 3 has also moved there ! But other than him, it's still the easiest FA and he's moved because he's going to be offline most of the season, so I figured second place would do, and hopefully his AI is as shit as mine.
But things are not looking so good as someone has made the AI land in a sensible manner finally. I'm going to miss about 8-10 games, which I can guarantee my AI will lose every single game.
Looking at overall club ability i'm still way behind everyone else, but i've played a few games and of course, won them with ease. I'm pretty sure i've actually cracked the ME again, i've posted about it on here before but I think i've narrowed it down to something specific which is allowing me to beat far superior teams and it's something which I can't replicate in AI games unfortunately.
It's the only explanation, and i'm not going into it again and it could just be one of my myths but I think this is a serious edge I have which no one else is doing. Read up on my away tactics post if you want more info!
Anyway, I might be back on Monday if I make it through the week :D I'll no doubt return to find myself bottom of the table and the season in ruins.
Anyway, in anticipation of this event I have moved FA. I went to the easiest looking FA, why wouldn't I ? With one problem, my main rival who panned me in the last game of the season to take EFA run 3 has also moved there ! But other than him, it's still the easiest FA and he's moved because he's going to be offline most of the season, so I figured second place would do, and hopefully his AI is as shit as mine.
But things are not looking so good as someone has made the AI land in a sensible manner finally. I'm going to miss about 8-10 games, which I can guarantee my AI will lose every single game.
Looking at overall club ability i'm still way behind everyone else, but i've played a few games and of course, won them with ease. I'm pretty sure i've actually cracked the ME again, i've posted about it on here before but I think i've narrowed it down to something specific which is allowing me to beat far superior teams and it's something which I can't replicate in AI games unfortunately.
It's the only explanation, and i'm not going into it again and it could just be one of my myths but I think this is a serious edge I have which no one else is doing. Read up on my away tactics post if you want more info!
Anyway, I might be back on Monday if I make it through the week :D I'll no doubt return to find myself bottom of the table and the season in ruins.
Saturday 19 June 2010
Eat The Rich
Wages are pretty crazy these days eh ? I have probably bid on around 35 players so far in wage auctions and won about 4 of them, having been around 75% under the final wage in some. Terribly average youth players going for 16k wages and the like, crazy stuff. Or is it ?
Partially because I was drunk, and probably more likely related to the fact i'm slightly mad I decided to join the party. I bid 22k wages on an 18 year old with an AF of 18k, who I suspect is probably around 3* potential. However, he has awesome physicals (probably nearly peaked) 18 jumping and a senior average of 7.49. So as long as the ME update doesn't screw me over I know he can slot into the first team no problems. Cost wise, 22*28 - £616k + AF = £634k for the season. Is it that daft now ? I suspect he would easily sell for that in a private transfer.
With that in mind it seems entirely sensible to be paying crazy wages in off season auctions when players cost so much on the open market. Alas, i'm still not being quite crazy enough it seems. I've bid £50k, 60k, more on 30 year old defenders and lost out, I simply can't get any bloody players in ! For the first time ever i'm classed as a rich club but I just cannot buy anyone, because being classed as "rich" by the game, in the current climate, means you can afford one average player.
So i've changed tactic and started randomly bidding on players I don't want and have no intention of keeping so I can sell them once tax has gone. £22k AF players have MV of £500k + ! I smell some profit here.
Plus I need to move out of the EFA for a season as i'm going to be offline for a week, so I may as well try and bring some of my younger players through. I should have enough for a top half finish in the premiership still, and for the first time ever i'm not actually playing to win the thing ! Although, depending what the ME update does, it's still possible I can manage it.
I'm still projected a fair whack of profit tax, so for the first time ever I might actually plan for the future and punt some more cash into the stadium. I'll no doubt spunk it all on some player 10 minutes before the season starts like.
Most of my players have orange arrows of death though !! Take Sir Lavezzi, my goal a game striker, he's lost 0.12 dribbling, or 0.75% of his dribbling ability. OH WHAT AM I TO DO, HE'S GOING TO BE SHIT NOW! Get a grip.
Partially because I was drunk, and probably more likely related to the fact i'm slightly mad I decided to join the party. I bid 22k wages on an 18 year old with an AF of 18k, who I suspect is probably around 3* potential. However, he has awesome physicals (probably nearly peaked) 18 jumping and a senior average of 7.49. So as long as the ME update doesn't screw me over I know he can slot into the first team no problems. Cost wise, 22*28 - £616k + AF = £634k for the season. Is it that daft now ? I suspect he would easily sell for that in a private transfer.
With that in mind it seems entirely sensible to be paying crazy wages in off season auctions when players cost so much on the open market. Alas, i'm still not being quite crazy enough it seems. I've bid £50k, 60k, more on 30 year old defenders and lost out, I simply can't get any bloody players in ! For the first time ever i'm classed as a rich club but I just cannot buy anyone, because being classed as "rich" by the game, in the current climate, means you can afford one average player.
So i've changed tactic and started randomly bidding on players I don't want and have no intention of keeping so I can sell them once tax has gone. £22k AF players have MV of £500k + ! I smell some profit here.
Plus I need to move out of the EFA for a season as i'm going to be offline for a week, so I may as well try and bring some of my younger players through. I should have enough for a top half finish in the premiership still, and for the first time ever i'm not actually playing to win the thing ! Although, depending what the ME update does, it's still possible I can manage it.
I'm still projected a fair whack of profit tax, so for the first time ever I might actually plan for the future and punt some more cash into the stadium. I'll no doubt spunk it all on some player 10 minutes before the season starts like.
Most of my players have orange arrows of death though !! Take Sir Lavezzi, my goal a game striker, he's lost 0.12 dribbling, or 0.75% of his dribbling ability. OH WHAT AM I TO DO, HE'S GOING TO BE SHIT NOW! Get a grip.
Friday 18 June 2010
Getting Better
I did post a preview of 3D about an hour after it was released before deleting it when I realised I wasn't supposed to, but I deleted the video files afterwards then couldn't be bothered.
It seems SI have posted a preview in somewhat questionable quality so I've decided to do another without the drunken commentary ramblings. Should be available in "HD"
It seems SI have posted a preview in somewhat questionable quality so I've decided to do another without the drunken commentary ramblings. Should be available in "HD"
Wednesday 16 June 2010
Boulevard Of Broken Dreams
Everyone seems pretty queit in the blogosphere of late, gameworldone seems dead and even the forums seem fairly placid of late (other than the utterly ridiculous complaining about orange arrows thread)
I'm not really sure if this is a good thing or not ? As Thom on Los Elephants has posted before, FML seems to be very much bandwagon jumping with everyone unhappy with the same issues at the same time, except we haven't had a wagon of late. It does seem very much a mood game where sections of the community seem to be feeling the same about things at the time like me and Jak seem to have become fed up at the same time.
Anyway, i've had a fairly good season I guess, but i'm gutted, I honestly am. I won the first 2 runs of the EFA and in the second instance I beat off the team with 400k or so wages sporting the likes of Lukaku and co. Third run I was well on course to do it again, easily clear at the top of the table and he had half his team injured.
I just needed to win the last few games then boom, hammered by a poor team, boom half my team injured. So it comes down to the last game, against 2nd place. I'm 2 points clear and all I need is a draw to take my 3rd league title in a row.
67% possession or so in the first 20 minutes, a dozen or so shots for me. Alas, he's had 3 shots, i'm 3-0 down and a 16 year old sub with a broken foot has scored a hatrick (i'm not joking) The game ends with a club record defeat of 5-0 even though he only had about 7 shots all game. I'm shocked and embarrassed by this, I really am... there was literally nothing I could do. So I finished 1st, 1st and 2nd, by a single measly point :(
I've been moaning about being broke for the last 3 months, but as I suspected I managed to pull some funds together as the season ended. I'm now classed as a rich club with around £5m cash or so and a couple more players I want to sell yet. Alas this came at the expense of selling much of my youth team but I'm struggling to see anyone with any value in wage auctions or transfer auctions though so i'm not sure if i'm going to end up getting many new players. Need some movement before the tax man comes in to steal my profits.
Funny thing is, my £1 DC with 16k AF is still easily cutting it at the top level! But who knows what the new ME will bring?
Finally punted up a new stand but it's going to be essentially next season before that is finished.
I'm going to be on holiday for a week or so just as the season starts next week (Gastonbury!) so I think I will have to leave the EFA because I will no doubt come back to find my AI has lost every game and I could be stuck in bad form indefinitely.
Nowt much else happening i'm afraid.
I'm not really sure if this is a good thing or not ? As Thom on Los Elephants has posted before, FML seems to be very much bandwagon jumping with everyone unhappy with the same issues at the same time, except we haven't had a wagon of late. It does seem very much a mood game where sections of the community seem to be feeling the same about things at the time like me and Jak seem to have become fed up at the same time.
Anyway, i've had a fairly good season I guess, but i'm gutted, I honestly am. I won the first 2 runs of the EFA and in the second instance I beat off the team with 400k or so wages sporting the likes of Lukaku and co. Third run I was well on course to do it again, easily clear at the top of the table and he had half his team injured.
I just needed to win the last few games then boom, hammered by a poor team, boom half my team injured. So it comes down to the last game, against 2nd place. I'm 2 points clear and all I need is a draw to take my 3rd league title in a row.
67% possession or so in the first 20 minutes, a dozen or so shots for me. Alas, he's had 3 shots, i'm 3-0 down and a 16 year old sub with a broken foot has scored a hatrick (i'm not joking) The game ends with a club record defeat of 5-0 even though he only had about 7 shots all game. I'm shocked and embarrassed by this, I really am... there was literally nothing I could do. So I finished 1st, 1st and 2nd, by a single measly point :(
I've been moaning about being broke for the last 3 months, but as I suspected I managed to pull some funds together as the season ended. I'm now classed as a rich club with around £5m cash or so and a couple more players I want to sell yet. Alas this came at the expense of selling much of my youth team but I'm struggling to see anyone with any value in wage auctions or transfer auctions though so i'm not sure if i'm going to end up getting many new players. Need some movement before the tax man comes in to steal my profits.
Funny thing is, my £1 DC with 16k AF is still easily cutting it at the top level! But who knows what the new ME will bring?
Finally punted up a new stand but it's going to be essentially next season before that is finished.
I'm going to be on holiday for a week or so just as the season starts next week (Gastonbury!) so I think I will have to leave the EFA because I will no doubt come back to find my AI has lost every game and I could be stuck in bad form indefinitely.
Nowt much else happening i'm afraid.
Friday 11 June 2010
Sale of the Century
Run 3 of the EFA has started well, played 7, won 7. Good times, roll up to bottom of the league and before I know it i'm 3-0 down, but we know shit like this is to be expected by now.
Anyway, I have problems. One of my youths was wanting a £200 pay rise, not bad, I think he's worth that, bank veto on the extend contract. Quite possibly related to the new update and the overdraft changes as I was only projected -89k or something.
Meanwhile, i'm looking at a player I sold for £30k in season 1. He was a decent potential player, but he was shit, his attributes meant he would never become a decent player so I got rid because £30k was a lot of cash in season 1. Anyway, he's now worth £2.4m - he's still complete shit, but £2.4m !! That could have solved all of my problems.
With that in mind, I decided on my new strategy. I need money, I need it now, I need to expand the stadium and maintain a team which is going to win the league again next season. So I figured it was time to sell my entire youth team. I think I actually did this at the exact same time in FML v1 back on St John, and I made naff all cash out of it on that occasion.
I've decided to keep the better players who I use in the first team and the rest haven't been given a game in the seniors yet so their AFs/MVs are still pretty low so i'm not expecting mega bucks. But I reckon I should be able generate £2-3m plus a senior I want to shift should net me around £5m in total. If I don't generate enough cash then the others will have to go too.
No doubt in a few seasons time, like what happened above above, like what happened in my previous GW, like what common sense tells me, all my youths will be worth a lot more money in a few seasons time and piss me off on a regular basis by outplaying me.
But as per my total inability to see anything past the next result I need to improve the team, I simply cannot accept defeat next season.
In other news I have gone from having barely any injuries at all to suddenly having 5 midfielders unavailable with my first ever training injury in the middle of this mess. Step up my youth team, most of whom are currently in auction!
Anyway, I have problems. One of my youths was wanting a £200 pay rise, not bad, I think he's worth that, bank veto on the extend contract. Quite possibly related to the new update and the overdraft changes as I was only projected -89k or something.
Meanwhile, i'm looking at a player I sold for £30k in season 1. He was a decent potential player, but he was shit, his attributes meant he would never become a decent player so I got rid because £30k was a lot of cash in season 1. Anyway, he's now worth £2.4m - he's still complete shit, but £2.4m !! That could have solved all of my problems.
With that in mind, I decided on my new strategy. I need money, I need it now, I need to expand the stadium and maintain a team which is going to win the league again next season. So I figured it was time to sell my entire youth team. I think I actually did this at the exact same time in FML v1 back on St John, and I made naff all cash out of it on that occasion.
I've decided to keep the better players who I use in the first team and the rest haven't been given a game in the seniors yet so their AFs/MVs are still pretty low so i'm not expecting mega bucks. But I reckon I should be able generate £2-3m plus a senior I want to shift should net me around £5m in total. If I don't generate enough cash then the others will have to go too.
No doubt in a few seasons time, like what happened above above, like what happened in my previous GW, like what common sense tells me, all my youths will be worth a lot more money in a few seasons time and piss me off on a regular basis by outplaying me.
But as per my total inability to see anything past the next result I need to improve the team, I simply cannot accept defeat next season.
In other news I have gone from having barely any injuries at all to suddenly having 5 midfielders unavailable with my first ever training injury in the middle of this mess. Step up my youth team, most of whom are currently in auction!
Wednesday 9 June 2010
This is Hardcore
I see Jak seems unhappy of late looking at his recent blog posts.
Main complaint seems to things are a bit boring and the game is a little too casual. I do see his point of view and agree with it to a certain extent. The reason i'm not in total agreement is because of the amount of effort and time I am having to put in just to ensure that no one can win AI or play my AI - considering 3 runs of the EFA per season this is quite a tiring and time consuming task. If I had lost just 1 more game last season I would not have won the league, I had 0% AI but if I had left some games to my AI I can guarantee that I would have lost a fair chunk of them and thus not won the league title.
So I am finding myself online quite often (taking the night off today due to league reset day which will no doubt mean i'll lose all my day 1 AI!) but yeah, in fairness, i'm not actually doing a right lot. I'm just kind of there, waiting for games, waiting for something to happen really. I've got a tonne of youth games to play as I went a bit OTT on the XFA competitions but I never pay much attention to those.
I have withdrawn from all XFA competitions mainly because they pretty much all have home playing rights enabled. As you may gather from the above, I don't like people playing my AI, just because I lose and I certainly don't like losing. The second reason is how bloody random and different your form is in these competitions compared to the league.
The only other competition my senior team is in is the ladder and despite playing teams which are generally poorer and of a lower standard than my league (not not low enough for a big underdog factor) my form is horrific. I've been stuck in same level for god knows how long and just seem to draw every single game every time it resets. I know I would probably just be going mental if I was in a load more competitions with my form up and down all over the place.
So generally I do agree with what Jak is saying about the game being too casual. It's easy for people to just spend a small amount of time online, enjoy the game and do reasonably well and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that ! But why don't people spend more time online ? Well, because there's not that much else to do ! People say, "oh well, I don't have enough time, I don't want to play more" but how many people signed up to something like WoW thinking "hey i'm going to spend 30 hours a week playing this game!" They spent that time playing it for a reason.
On FML the main thing you can do though is simply play games, which is fine, but the games need to mean something. This is one of the reasons pre-reset I was championing FAs being deleted so you could just enter as many official competitions as you liked so you could be super intense if you wish and then the next week you could scale things back if you needed a break and there would always be something to do, always meaningful games to play and a reason to log on.
Anyway, when it was clear that wasn't going to happen I was hoping that the XFA might be put to good use to fill the void. Alas, there's probably 50+ or so competitions to wade through, half of which have been there months and never started or others which have not really been maintained properly and the rest all have home playing rights, even the cups - well thought out that one.
So we are just left with the quick plays, which are okay.... but they aint quick, they last about 6 hours and again, I don't want to log off and let someone play my AI ! Plus they are always the same, same structure, same format, same snooze-a-thon waiting for games.
I was hoping for a really active engaging environment where there was always something going on, always some competition to play and meaningful things to play for but i'm pretty much in the age old routine of waiting for AI. At least start chucking some RP around in these XFA competitions !
Back before the reset on my old GW I was often criticised because I didn't discuss competition type ideas in the right place, speaking to orgs was wrong, posting on blog or forum was wrong, starting a discussion in game was wrong and I was told I apparently should email the mod list. So I tried this a couple of weeks ago in my current GW asking for a weekend league in the XFA that ran from Friday to Sunday, explaining how it should be set up, alas I didn't get any response.
I think I might be coming to the end of my time with this game soon, it's just becoming a very time consuming chore for little reward. I know something is wrong because its not made me angry for about 2 weeks ;)
Main complaint seems to things are a bit boring and the game is a little too casual. I do see his point of view and agree with it to a certain extent. The reason i'm not in total agreement is because of the amount of effort and time I am having to put in just to ensure that no one can win AI or play my AI - considering 3 runs of the EFA per season this is quite a tiring and time consuming task. If I had lost just 1 more game last season I would not have won the league, I had 0% AI but if I had left some games to my AI I can guarantee that I would have lost a fair chunk of them and thus not won the league title.
So I am finding myself online quite often (taking the night off today due to league reset day which will no doubt mean i'll lose all my day 1 AI!) but yeah, in fairness, i'm not actually doing a right lot. I'm just kind of there, waiting for games, waiting for something to happen really. I've got a tonne of youth games to play as I went a bit OTT on the XFA competitions but I never pay much attention to those.
I have withdrawn from all XFA competitions mainly because they pretty much all have home playing rights enabled. As you may gather from the above, I don't like people playing my AI, just because I lose and I certainly don't like losing. The second reason is how bloody random and different your form is in these competitions compared to the league.
The only other competition my senior team is in is the ladder and despite playing teams which are generally poorer and of a lower standard than my league (not not low enough for a big underdog factor) my form is horrific. I've been stuck in same level for god knows how long and just seem to draw every single game every time it resets. I know I would probably just be going mental if I was in a load more competitions with my form up and down all over the place.
So generally I do agree with what Jak is saying about the game being too casual. It's easy for people to just spend a small amount of time online, enjoy the game and do reasonably well and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that ! But why don't people spend more time online ? Well, because there's not that much else to do ! People say, "oh well, I don't have enough time, I don't want to play more" but how many people signed up to something like WoW thinking "hey i'm going to spend 30 hours a week playing this game!" They spent that time playing it for a reason.
On FML the main thing you can do though is simply play games, which is fine, but the games need to mean something. This is one of the reasons pre-reset I was championing FAs being deleted so you could just enter as many official competitions as you liked so you could be super intense if you wish and then the next week you could scale things back if you needed a break and there would always be something to do, always meaningful games to play and a reason to log on.
Anyway, when it was clear that wasn't going to happen I was hoping that the XFA might be put to good use to fill the void. Alas, there's probably 50+ or so competitions to wade through, half of which have been there months and never started or others which have not really been maintained properly and the rest all have home playing rights, even the cups - well thought out that one.
So we are just left with the quick plays, which are okay.... but they aint quick, they last about 6 hours and again, I don't want to log off and let someone play my AI ! Plus they are always the same, same structure, same format, same snooze-a-thon waiting for games.
I was hoping for a really active engaging environment where there was always something going on, always some competition to play and meaningful things to play for but i'm pretty much in the age old routine of waiting for AI. At least start chucking some RP around in these XFA competitions !
Back before the reset on my old GW I was often criticised because I didn't discuss competition type ideas in the right place, speaking to orgs was wrong, posting on blog or forum was wrong, starting a discussion in game was wrong and I was told I apparently should email the mod list. So I tried this a couple of weeks ago in my current GW asking for a weekend league in the XFA that ran from Friday to Sunday, explaining how it should be set up, alas I didn't get any response.
I think I might be coming to the end of my time with this game soon, it's just becoming a very time consuming chore for little reward. I know something is wrong because its not made me angry for about 2 weeks ;)
Tuesday 8 June 2010
The State of Things
Sorry, things have been a bit dull round here of late. I don't really have too much to moan about at present and there's not really anything I can be bothered putting the energy into ranting about right now.
The second run of the EFA finished last night with a rather tense and difficult finish. Had to stay up rather late to catch my last AI game as it was of vital importance after drawing with my title rival. Fortunately I won and took the league title but just 2 points ! So two EFA titles in the last two weeks for me, which is pretty good going and I assume this has sealed Premiership status for next season.
It's especially pleasing as I moved my captain on without replacing him and was hit by quite a lot of injuries this time round.
But I was chatting to my league rival who has a team far better than mine and he was telling me he was projected £13.4m. In contrast despite winning season 1 qualifying, finishing 1st, 2nd and 3rd in the second season and winning the first 2 runs far in season 3, i'm projected... £300k. I don't have especially high wages and haven't really made any huge transfer bids.
My mate explained it quite well when he said "you have made the mistake of buying good players who can win games" and in all seriousness, he is right ! My strategy of creating a team to win games will backfire now because I am unable to afford to strengthen my squad to compete with the teams that have £13m from their transfer dealings.
But that's the way I roll, I live by the next game and don't plan much further ahead than that! Take when my MC broke his leg due to Marc Duffy accidentally resetting the server, I could have got by for the second run without him and probably finished 2nd, but no, I went out and spent every penny I had to buy a replacement so make sure results didn't suffer too much. Bear in mind I still can't afford to turn my auto extends on at this point in time!
Maybe i'm stupid, I don't know... I reckon about 75% of my time playing FML my bank balance has been in the red. I'm constantly fighting fires and running away from the bank manager who wants his money back. If I was less impatient and actually came up with a plan I might finally be able to create my empire.... but the problem is I HAVE to win the next game at all costs, so I can't ever do it.
So with my £300k, I need to start building a stadium and improve the team to such an extent that I can beat the best of the best in the GW to win that too. Fortunately throughout my FML career, I have always had some uncanny knack of pulling money out of seemingly nowhere at the last minute, but £13m ? I don't think I can manage that!
The second run of the EFA finished last night with a rather tense and difficult finish. Had to stay up rather late to catch my last AI game as it was of vital importance after drawing with my title rival. Fortunately I won and took the league title but just 2 points ! So two EFA titles in the last two weeks for me, which is pretty good going and I assume this has sealed Premiership status for next season.
It's especially pleasing as I moved my captain on without replacing him and was hit by quite a lot of injuries this time round.
But I was chatting to my league rival who has a team far better than mine and he was telling me he was projected £13.4m. In contrast despite winning season 1 qualifying, finishing 1st, 2nd and 3rd in the second season and winning the first 2 runs far in season 3, i'm projected... £300k. I don't have especially high wages and haven't really made any huge transfer bids.
My mate explained it quite well when he said "you have made the mistake of buying good players who can win games" and in all seriousness, he is right ! My strategy of creating a team to win games will backfire now because I am unable to afford to strengthen my squad to compete with the teams that have £13m from their transfer dealings.
But that's the way I roll, I live by the next game and don't plan much further ahead than that! Take when my MC broke his leg due to Marc Duffy accidentally resetting the server, I could have got by for the second run without him and probably finished 2nd, but no, I went out and spent every penny I had to buy a replacement so make sure results didn't suffer too much. Bear in mind I still can't afford to turn my auto extends on at this point in time!
Maybe i'm stupid, I don't know... I reckon about 75% of my time playing FML my bank balance has been in the red. I'm constantly fighting fires and running away from the bank manager who wants his money back. If I was less impatient and actually came up with a plan I might finally be able to create my empire.... but the problem is I HAVE to win the next game at all costs, so I can't ever do it.
So with my £300k, I need to start building a stadium and improve the team to such an extent that I can beat the best of the best in the GW to win that too. Fortunately throughout my FML career, I have always had some uncanny knack of pulling money out of seemingly nowhere at the last minute, but £13m ? I don't think I can manage that!
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