Damaged Goods

I don't think I have had a moan about the ME since launch so I figured it was about time as it is still annoying me on a daily basis.

Lets start off with the conclusion if you don't want to read my ramblings - The ME sucks, it's the worse ME in the history of the CM/FM series - including CM4. It looks more like football, but that's it.

Lets start with the players. Player attributes are generally completely meaningless with only a few seemingly making much difference to anything. A player with strong physical attributes will constantly outplay supremely technically gifted players no matter what the gap in quality. People seem to think this is only happening now because the general standard of players is poor, I can assure you this is not the case and it will be exactly the same once better players are unlocked.

It's all about the physical attributes and especially pace and acceleration in offensive players. As I posted before, I managed to get Jermaine Beckford to score 40 odd goals on FM10 in the Premier League / Champions league when he has a CA of around 120.. I don't really bother paying any attention to technical attributes any more as they simply don't do anything.

The issue is though, the general quality of your team, regardless of whether you pack it with physical attributes, actually has almost no bearing whatsoever on whether you will win the game or not. The only time this doesn't apply is where there is a massive difference in the overall CA of the teams which are playing each other.

Results are almost entirely based on your form no matter how good your team is. But form seems to be based on absolutely nothing I can understand. There's just no link at all between anything in the game as far as I can tell. I've gone from runs of 40 odd games almost unbeaten to 40 odd games with one solitary win - with the same team and tactics. What changed? Nothing, my team suddenly change from being unbeatable - which was stupid anyway - to not being able to win anything - which was equally demented.

Even when you are on good form, you will totally out of the blue get absolutely hammered by a very poor team. It's not always a case of entering bad form either, the team will be poor, manager offline, no match plans, no special formations and nothing of note. They come out hell for leather and before you know it you are 5-0 down. You change formation, you change your tactics, you change the players but nothings happening??? This awful team who has lost their last 10 games is suddenly running through your team like it doesn't exist.

These random results happen all the time, there's almost no way to know when it's going to happen. It's not a case of just losing a game, that's cool, it's a case of getting utterly destroyed for no apparent reason. Then ten minutes later you beat them 5-0 or something.

Which brings me on to my next point. The ME is a harsh mistress... never treats you right. I know what people are going to think when they read this, but, you almost never lose a game fairly. Why can't you play a team which is a bit better, they play better than you and they win the game - just occasionally? What happens is you completely hammer a team into the ground and they score 4 long shots with players who have <10 in the attribute. They score a last minute equaliser, their GK gets MOTM, your GK decides to throw the ball into the back of the next in the last minute. The losing team always turn into supermen in the last 15 minutes when they are behind regardless of whether any tactical changes have been made.

I just want SOME normal games, where one team plays better than the other and wins the game? Is this too much to expect ? Every game ends in some kind of calamity or some crazy once in life time event. I win as many games as I lose in this ridiculous fashion too. If I think back over this season's game and try and think how games the scoreline/match stats was a fair representation of what happened on the pitch, the answer probably doesn't reach double figures.

Knock Knock. Who's there ? Some fucker injuring 10 players every game. Too many knocks...

Home form is far far too strong, the only way you can win games away form home is if you have managed to get yourself on super form. The home/away split in most competitions is frightening.

It's almost impossible to lock a game down too. You can dominate a game in terms of possession and CCCS but if you look at the match stats at the end of the game the actual number of shots for each team tends to actually be quite similar. I'm not playing any kind of attacking strategy but every match is an end to end kamikaze display of attacking football. Even when i'm playing quite defensively I end up watching my entire team bomb forward like morons in the 85th minute of the game. Next thing I know, an injured player on 45% condition manages to run round my entire team and score a wonder goal. Oh yeah, condition doesn't seem to do much either.

What possibly annoys me more than anything though is the fact a group of school children can match or even totally out play a team of senior professionals. You see this all the time, a team of 15/16 year olds who can bend it like Beckham, pass like Xavi and score like they are Wayne Rooney. But as we already know, player attributes don't do anything ! I went off on one about this in beta and got told with home advantage taken into account there was only an average of 15-20 (or something, I can't remember) difference in CA when I lost to one. I don't care, there's no possible explanation I can accept for losing to a youth team unless they are all geniune wonder kids.

I've not even mentioned tactics yet. We all know wingers don't work any more, can't cross, strikers can't head, full backs can apparently phase shift into wingers while defending at the same time. Who knows, there's not much point doing anything with tactics other than playing a narrow formation.

gah, I could go on for pages about this but I need some food. I'm actually doing pretty well at the moment, so this isn't sour grapes about losing - Although the fact i'm doing so well is stupid because my team is poor, I just know how to manipulate the ME as much as possible.