This is just a small rant of mine - I love the game and I've played it since CM 00/01. And I don't like to complain, but I'm just curious about your opinions.
I don't understand why after all this years, the AI is really bad in terms of team management. One of the biggest issues I have with the game is how easy it becomes after few years, or even from the start if you take a better club. If you start in Vanarama North for example, yes you will struggle for 6,7,8 seasons, but eventually as you become a better Premier League club, it will again become easy. So starting unemployed or taking charge of a small club and sticking with it just gives you more time before the game becomes easy.
And I don't think the problem is in general game design, but in the AI that's managing other teams that is just bad, and it doesn't seem as something that's hard to implement. Here are some examples:
- AI doesn't buy a lot of players in general - if you buy a few, you will always be the first team in the league in terms of player signings - You will never see that AI bought good 5 17-year olds for the future - I've managed to sell old star players for 80M+ - I doubt any human player would ever buy them for that much - AI will not sell the player if their contract expires in a year and they're unwilling to re-sign. - AI would often play a slightly better player in position in which that player is barely capable of playing. You can also notice how often the recommended subs don't make sense. - AI doesn't rotate players as much - AI is bad tactic-wise - e.g. if I use Man City and play PSG, I would often destroy them like 7-0, especially in season 2+, despite not having that much better players - If you have money, you can steal all the best young talent every year, and no team would even try to compete with you
I remember back in the day, me and my friend would play on the same save, and we would be fighting for first and second every year, and it was much more entertaining than single-player.
All of these don't seem so hard to implement, compared to some complex features that are already in there. What do you think is the reason for that? Is it to make it easier on newcomers and casual players? At least they could put some hard mode on where AI is a lot more active when managing teams.
@chef, I think you really need to provide some facts.
I mean, if you're 5 or 10 seasons in the future then you can shows us what players top clubs have.
For example, many top clubs including Man City, PSG, Liverpool and others start the game having 160CA-180CA players and if after 10 seasons into the future they having 130CA-150CA players then it might be an issue.
chef said: - AI doesn't buy a lot of players in general - if you buy a few, you will always be the first team in the league in terms of player signings - You will never see that AI bought good 5 17-year olds for the future Expand
from what I've seen in long saves in this FM, top clubs buy 1-3 players for 1st team and bunch of youngsters for u21 every season problem is starting, when they don't give those youngsters proper playing time to develop at club or at loan but they keep buying wonderkids like crazy
I partially accept that unwilling to sell players on last year of contract is kinda a problem, at least for players, that are clearly far away from really helping a team to achieve our goals. DoF's just trying to keep them until they starting to receive offers on free transfers at January, when he could get at least some small amount of money from selling them.
In the end this is a game, not a simulation. And I think some things are coded to provide some sort of reward. Most saves end within 5 or 6 seasons, you can't make a game that would only pay you off in year 20, very few will reach it. So it makes sense you can (with some skill) outplay the AI. Progress has to be challenging but reachable and if you are really experienced that reachable becomes almost guaranteed.
Sure some of the decisions could be better, but we are also actively trying to exploit any flaws. For example unlike real life you get a pretty good idea of young players potential, even exact if you look at PA and other hidden attributes. It's also fairly easy to develop young players (as a human manager, AI could really use an upgrade here), they are rarely flops and even then you can still probably sell for profit. All of it leading to the "common knowledge of how to play the game" which is actually just exploiting what the AI is bad at to get ahead. If it did this well and for example undervalued older still good players then the meta strategy would be to buy those. Gamers will always find the optimal way to progress through the game and then complain it's not challenging enough.
This is just a small rant of mine - I love the game and I've played it since CM 00/01. And I don't like to complain, but I'm just curious about your opinions.
I don't understand why after all this years, the AI is really bad in terms of team management. One of the biggest issues I have with the game is how easy it becomes after few years, or even from the start if you take a better club. If you start in Vanarama North for example, yes you will struggle for 6,7,8 seasons, but eventually as you become a better Premier League club, it will again become easy. So starting unemployed or taking charge of a small club and sticking with it just gives you more time before the game becomes easy.
And I don't think the problem is in general game design, but in the AI that's managing other teams that is just bad, and it doesn't seem as something that's hard to implement. Here are some examples:
- AI doesn't buy a lot of players in general - if you buy a few, you will always be the first team in the league in terms of player signings
- You will never see that AI bought good 5 17-year olds for the future
- I've managed to sell old star players for 80M+ - I doubt any human player would ever buy them for that much
- AI will not sell the player if their contract expires in a year and they're unwilling to re-sign.
- AI would often play a slightly better player in position in which that player is barely capable of playing. You can also notice how often the recommended subs don't make sense.
- AI doesn't rotate players as much
- AI is bad tactic-wise - e.g. if I use Man City and play PSG, I would often destroy them like 7-0, especially in season 2+, despite not having that much better players
- If you have money, you can steal all the best young talent every year, and no team would even try to compete with you
I remember back in the day, me and my friend would play on the same save, and we would be fighting for first and second every year, and it was much more entertaining than single-player.
All of these don't seem so hard to implement, compared to some complex features that are already in there. What do you think is the reason for that? Is it to make it easier on newcomers and casual players? At least they could put some hard mode on where AI is a lot more active when managing teams.
@chef, I think you really need to provide some facts.
I mean, if you're 5 or 10 seasons in the future then you can shows us what players top clubs have.
For example, many top clubs including Man City, PSG, Liverpool and others start the game having 160CA-180CA players and if after 10 seasons into the future they having 130CA-150CA players then it might be an issue.
chef said: - AI doesn't buy a lot of players in general - if you buy a few, you will always be the first team in the league in terms of player signings
- You will never see that AI bought good 5 17-year olds for the future
from what I've seen in long saves in this FM, top clubs buy 1-3 players for 1st team and bunch of youngsters for u21 every season
problem is starting, when they don't give those youngsters proper playing time to develop at club or at loan
but they keep buying wonderkids like crazy
I partially accept that unwilling to sell players on last year of contract is kinda a problem, at least for players, that are clearly far away from really helping a team to achieve our goals.
DoF's just trying to keep them until they starting to receive offers on free transfers at January, when he could get at least some small amount of money from selling them.
In the end this is a game, not a simulation. And I think some things are coded to provide some sort of reward. Most saves end within 5 or 6 seasons, you can't make a game that would only pay you off in year 20, very few will reach it. So it makes sense you can (with some skill) outplay the AI. Progress has to be challenging but reachable and if you are really experienced that reachable becomes almost guaranteed.
Sure some of the decisions could be better, but we are also actively trying to exploit any flaws. For example unlike real life you get a pretty good idea of young players potential, even exact if you look at PA and other hidden attributes. It's also fairly easy to develop young players (as a human manager, AI could really use an upgrade here), they are rarely flops and even then you can still probably sell for profit. All of it leading to the "common knowledge of how to play the game" which is actually just exploiting what the AI is bad at to get ahead. If it did this well and for example undervalued older still good players then the meta strategy would be to buy those. Gamers will always find the optimal way to progress through the game and then complain it's not challenging enough.