This game is making me feel like I'm an idiot.

[Seff]

Am I the only one struggling here with this years? I can't seem to do good on any team, I've started 3 games already as Schalke, Hamburg and now Nice and I've been fired twice and now in the middle of my third I've just lost 3 in a row and I can smell the sacking already.

I've played FM for years now and spent a lot of time on them and NEVER have I been fired more than once after playing as maybe 20 or so different teams on each FM. Uusally on the last ones the stats would never add up when you start these losing streaks, say you'd have 10 shots on target to their 1, but they'd have scored that 1 and you'd have missed all 10 even with the best team in the league and they were the worst. This one is completely random, some games this will happen but then the next game it'll be the opposite except they'd score 5 of their chances and I'd miss my only one. The possession and pass accuracies will chance from game to game not changing anything, I watch my matches right and the only thing I can see different between me and my opposition is that they simply have better players no matter who I have on my team.

You could say it's my tactics but how would my tactics ever decide if my 4 star striker will mess up a 1 on 1 but then their 2 star striker will go and score from 20 yards? Or the fact my midfielder will not be able to make a simple through ball in a 2v1 situation but then their midfielder will go and make a pass that takes my whole defence out of the game. I can't understand it, I've tried different formations, different tactics, tried different players, teams, training, team talks, etc etc etc but the same remains, I just can't seem to win games. I honestly don't feel like it's my tactics, my players, team talks or training but what else could be making my team just not play good?

As a few extra points;
1. I always start the season off good, first 10 games or so I'll be around my predicted place, then next 10 I lose nearly all of them and get fired.

2. Of my three saves I've had I've not managed to score one free kick yet I've conceeded quite a few.

3. Before in previous years you usually have a few consistent players and 1 or 2 stand out players even when you're doing bad, in my 3 saves I've not had one player do much better than the rest and no consistency, I'll have someone get an 8.0 then next game 5.9.

4. My wingers seem to love to do some sort of odd, low shot/cross that goes straight to the GK a lot?

5. Overload is a useless tactic, I've used it many times and have managed 0 goals but conceeded a lot from it.

Thanks for reading my semi-annoyed rant/curiosity towards if this game is harder or if I'm missing something.

[Phillip]

I have similar thoughts but before I just whinge mindlessly as I have only had 17 for a weekend, first impressions are that it is a huge improvement on FM 16. I have been playing all weekend and no-one has scored against me from a cross yet. Bliss!! Or maybe my defenders are better. But anyway my defenders also are not giving away too many corners when there is no one around them for miles. Nob0dy has yet also scored against me from the touchline from an outragious angle.
So first impressions are the the Matchplay is slightly improved.

But have we all been duped.Is this now just a pretty piece of software so we can watch better graphics when watching the match. Tactics don't seem to make a blind bit of difference.

Why do I always give away 2 goals in the last 10 minutes no matter how well we have played and no matter how I try to anticipate this and alter things. The number of times this happened in FM 16 drove me crazy.

In FM 16 My players could play reasonably well for a while, (I play a possesion attacking form at high tempo moving the ball around). It worked very well and we had some good results. However as soon as I played a team from the bottom 3 in the league..they all played very badly...we still had all the possesion but the whole team couldn't play. Couldn't put a shot on target and they had one attack and scored. Now i appreciate this can happen in real life. But not every time.

In FM 17 the same seems to be happening. So having lost to very inferior opponents in this fashion i then decided to play the next game against similar rated or maybe slightly better opposition with no tactics set; team or individual. I beat them 4-2. I did nothing to alter the gameplay in any way. I did however give away two goals in the last ten minutes!

FM 16 nearly made me quit playing FM altogether, First impressions of FM17 is that it is graphically nice to watch the game. A lot of the silliness in game play has gone.

However I am starting to believe that each season is pre-planned and you finish where the software decides, regardless of what you do.

I'm willing to give this a good go but unfortunately tactics don't seem to make any difference.

I have been playing FM since FM 11. In my opinion, that was the only version where tactics really seemed to make a difference.

Can we keep the nice pretty graphics next time but also have the tactics influence a game in the next version?

[Bovrilrilril]

That'' strange as I've had plenty of success with Spurs on FM17, wimming the league by 10 points and just finding the game really easy

[Ariton]

Im also not doing the best, WITH Barcelona, fm 17 is much harder than fm 16, I also noticed that it's extremely hard to keep possession in fm 17.

[Just_DaVe]

Played 7 seasons so far 5 with one team and 2 with another,

Not done to bad but things to note that seem to show consistancy ,

Standard/flexible for me gives me the best stats possession etc etc,
I only ever change this if things are going wrong in a match,

4 4 2 I can't seem to get results with that formation,

Lower placed league team seem harder to beat that the top of the league,
even if your top of the league they almost always get a result against me

At some point in a season be it beginning middle or end I will have a drop in form for around 10 games out of no where,

Conceding goal is harder to prevent for me in this year's game if you plan to use your full backs in a attacking mind set odds are you will be caught out


Cheers

[Oggy]

Originally posted by pound.phillip:

However I am starting to believe that each season is pre-planned and you finish where the software decides, regardless of what you do.

lol

[CrazyNinja86]

I hear alot that this FM is harder but i still took Fiorentina to the title in my 1st season with no major signings and a few of their best players leaving and winning the league by 15+ points with 5 games left to play to me it seems no different to FM16 apart from I havent conceded from as many crosses in this FM. I'm currently playing an online game with a friend and it looks as if he's struggling with Man Utd after 3 games whilst im top with Liverpool with a +13 goal difference and no losses.

[Glacialis]

Enjoying it so far. Seems well balanced. Started with Accrington Stanley in league two. Was given the task of survival but currently sitting in a play off spot after 30 games.
Not to keen on the set piece creation, used to like the set piece creator from previous versions.

I will add though that I released three players to save wages in january and the same day the first team players in the positions i released all got injured in training leaving me short which was ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ lol.

[Eriol_Mits]

playing as Western-supermare all the way down in the Vanarama South. We are predicted to be fighting a relegation battle, 8 games into the season we sit 2nd in the league 18pts, 6 wins 2 defeats.

Not really gone mad signing lots of new players either, only currently made 4 signing 2 which i only signed to give some depth to the starting squad. Seems rather easy so far, but such the injury crisis will hit soon and ruin my season.

[morph113]

I just lost a first round cup match against an U20 team although I was favourites with 1.03 odds on win :)

[Unsaid]

Weird things happening... won every single pre-season match including one vs wolfsburg or someone else decent. As BPL season started I found myself with no goalkeeper (he was ineligible to play for 3 games coz "Sent away" although he WASN'T in any of the games I played... mb he was used in some U21 friendly or what not... I don't know that ), and then suddenly all nice games ending with reasonable scorelines like 2-0 1-0, transformed into 0-5 for me. Playing Hull vs Southhampton.... will probably wait for patches or read some tutorials

[daveheathcote1]

Tweaking the tactics during match day doesn't seem to do anything either.
As soon as you identify the opposition is playing a narrow formation and change yours to make it as wide as possible and to exploit the middle, it doesn't do anything at all.
Stevie Wonder and myself might as well write the coding for this game, at least we will stand a better chance of it playing realistic.

[FMstreamed]

I completely agree with you. My post on the forms was closed as it's seen as complaining, but today once gain i start the game 19 games unbeaten including pre-season friendlies, then BANG I lose against the bottom club, and now have lost 6 in a row and face the sack. Now some might say the AI has worked out my tactic, but according to my closed post SI says the AI doesn't do this ("the AI doesn't master your tactic" is the quote) - so what's happened? Why should i have to change things after so many games?... If it's not broke, why fix it? The usual stuff aggrevates me, you start losing cos the oppenent starts scoring free-kicks, penalties and wonder goals, but the biggest annoyance is losing to bottom teams - and this isn't because of park the bus tactics either, indeed my tactic on this save is averaging 49% possession.

I've been playing these sort of games from the day dot and like many of my my friends am starting to get a little annoyed with the undoing of tactics in this version. It's not like i don't understand tactical play either - I've been involved in coaching at all levels and have in the past been involved with the tactical side in testing with similar games. I've also tested many tactics available to download and have yet to find a more consitent tactic than the ones I use myself, and all ultimately failing.

Now before replying please bear in mind my points; I am not after a winning tactic, but after some explanation why successful tactics start failing after 15 games or so.

[BRETT RIVERBOAT]

There DOES seem to be something odd about this version. I have played and witnessed a few different games that either went really well or really badly

[Sani/Raven]

The opposite in my case. I find it weird that i win almost all matches, even after having sold half of the team. Also, a lot of clubs want my bad players. This was not the case in FM 16. It feels a bit easy now. And if i don't sell them, they complain and make trouble. So i'm forced to sell the entire team every season. Very silly

[meebee]

I found this years edition to be more difficult.
The tactics i developed last year do not seem to work anymore.
Of course i do accept to struggle in the beginning, as i tend to restructure the entire team once i start a new job.
I put a lot of effort in this to find the proper players and train them according to their role.
However, while i might do ok in the pre-season, i entirely failed during the season.
My defenders seem to be unable to adapt a serious defend play.
4 of them charging one player, while 1 opponent sneaks around 1 meter to the left and gets the pass + goal.
This is might happen once in a while, but not on constant basis if you field high quality players.
I had crazy results like 4-6, 7-1, 5-3 asf...
The match engine seems to be a bit out of balance.
Of course i could use some standard tactics like 4-1-4-1 or 4-4-2.
Those seem to work pretty ok.
But thats just boring. Doing the same over and over again for years.

I still assume, that the error is oin my side and i might need more time to understand how the engine works. But i never had to face such a high amount of frustration while playing fm.

Add about 20 game crashes (which i had never faced in any previous version) and german player transfer bug. And the fact, that i ordered the boxed version from Englad just to find out that not a single MB had been installed from disk and i had to pay a lot of money to download the game regardless of having bought the disk version.... (no broadband available at my place)

All in all this put me to doubt if i am going to buy the game at full price once again.
Next time i'll probably wait until it is on sale half a year or year later.