Soccer Gaming Catch-All

I think I can hold off on FM for a bit this year. Once December/January rolls around, the game will have been best patched and I can pounce.

Patch doesn't seem to have impacted on the ability of my defenders to notch goals, as Joleon Lescott notches a pair in the same match. I will forgive him, though, as it was part of a 3-0 victory over AC Milan in the CL. Still far too many ludicrous shots from outside the box.

In Monaco save I had a season where my RCB (reasonably tall, good header, but nothing crazy) scored 14 goals from corners. Next season - no more than five or six. It can fluctuate wildly, not sure why.

I'm disappointed to hear they haven't figured out how to fix the corner goal bug.

Team Talks and press interaction, from what you described, sounds like an extra layer of clicking. I find the FM11 press conferences/player interaction to be quite tedious and was there for "realism" when it wasn't fun at all and didn't add all that much to the game.

I think I'll hold out until the Christmas Steam sale again this year. It's not like we're talking huge savings (probably only around $7.50 or so) but it's not like I really want the game. At this point the biggest selling point is the data update though the Newcastle researcher wasn't happy with how a lot of ratings turned out.

I'm thinking that to get a proper Libero I'm going to have to find an (attacking?) midfielder regen with good height and heading to get the desired results. Converting Colocinni or Gary Cahill is a decent stop-gap. I think I found the fed you were referring to Prederick, and PPMs plus tweaking instructions seems to play a big role. It will be easier to get the proper PPMs with a teenager.

What's a PPM ?

davet010 wrote:

What's a PPM ?

SI Forum shorthand for preferred moves (I think it's "player preferred moves"). If I can get a midfielder who's good on the ball with good height re-trained to the sweeper position and have him "run with ball often" and "always get forward" it could give me that attacking-type player I want.

Roke wrote:

I'm disappointed to hear they haven't figured out how to fix the corner goal bug.

I wasn't using any exploit (not sure if there is one anymore - I think it was back in FM). I just left everything at default, generally I seemed to score a lot of goals from corners, but from variety of situations, perhaps because I had a rule not to buy any CBs smaller than ~1.90m so I had a lot of good headers in first eleven.

Libero material - there is plenty of great defensive midfielders who are competent playing as CB and have good technique. Mental stats are usually the biggest problem, if you want your CB to spray passes.
For two examples of types of players that are easy to find... Nkoulou from Monaco (I think he might have moved to PSG this season, not sure). Hummels is interesting player type as well, very good attacking stats, but slowish not really a playmaker material.
Plays long balls PPM can be great even for average defender if a) he's not stupid, b) you're not crazy about possession football. I had Davide Astori as my LCB, and with 12-13 technique and passing and that PPM he was surprisingly good at playing 'de Boers'

Dave: PPM=player's preferred moves

Addendum: in ASM save I was sometimes experimenting with playing Miguel Veloso as CB when I needed to go super offensive. (You probably know the player from all those years of FM, as he's always been a big star and good buy.) I'd just give him a lot of freedom and set him up as playmaker. It's very gung-ho, but thanks to the space and time he was able to enjoy coming up from the defence sometimes he would pull off amazing passes when coming forward.
But then try to provide some cover for a player like that. That's why I only allowed myself to try it against weaker teams playing one striker.

Thanks UCRC. I've used Arturo Vidal as a centreback in the past though without any ball-playing adjustments. The principle's pretty much the same though. Frankly I'm surprised Barcelona hasn't gone in for Vidal in real life since the guy can play in a tonne of positions, especially at the back.

I don't know if Nkoulou will be in the cards in this file as I want to keep a negative or neutral net spend. I have used him in the past as a conventional centreback though.

I had a match against Manchester United where I upped my Libero's (Colocinni) mentality and forawrd runs and he seemed to get forward more often which was nice. Match ended nil-nil but we had 10 men behind the ball when not in possession. I think i need to play wider so my fullbacks don't tuck in as much defensively since I already have 3 in the middle at the back. We also have some troubles going forward which means I will need to either have my wing-backs or my non-holding central midfielders run forward more often.

this is a nice little experiment though, I haven't really played around with tactics much in the past. In FM06 I tended to use a flat 4-4-2. 07 meant a switch to a diamond. 0/ 09 were usually 4-5-1/4-4-3, FM10 had the greatest experimentation with that bombing-fullback 4-3-1-2 (man that was awesome to watch). FM11 has been almost entirely 4-2-3-1 for me. It's kind of nice to switch formations, tactics, and having to buy players of a different type.

Just opened up Origin and it said that Fifa 12 is on sale for $16 (if bought through origin) until 11/7.

Gdawg27 wrote:

Just opened up Origin and it said that Fifa 12 is on sale for $16 (if bought through origin) until 11/7.

Wow, that's quite the sale since the games barely over a month old. I've been playing Ultimate Team like a mad man. I've got a team I'm very happy with.

Now that I found out about "Happy Hour", I'm saving up my coins to try and get a good player on my team or turn around and sell him for a nice amount of coins.

Buckled. Bought FM12.

Just started a new game with Udinese. Forgotten how much I hate that dual ownership system. Wish I had strikers who could shoot straight.

Uh, Di Natale?

I'm still holding out.

Is it just me, or does anyone else take certain real-life considerations into account when selecting a FM team? For instance, I generally lean towards teams that 1.) play in a nation where an American manager might realistically get a shot (although that limits my choices drastically) and 2.) Are at least making some kind of attempt to fight racism on the terraces.

Just me? Or does anyone else do stuff like this?

UCRC wrote:

Uh, Di Natale?

I'm still holding out.

After my 6-1 aggregate mashing at the hands of Benfica in the CL qualifying round, I'm saying no....

Prederick wrote:

Buckled. Bought FM12.

+1

Prederick wrote:

Is it just me, or does anyone else take certain real-life considerations into account when selecting a FM team? For instance, I generally lean towards teams that 1.) play in a nation where an American manager might realistically get a shot (although that limits my choices drastically) and 2.) Are at least making some kind of attempt to fight racism on the terraces.

Just me? Or does anyone else do stuff like this?

I do make up a background story on why an amateur like me gets a job as manager of a major club, but picked KVK Tienen because they're nearest me Or right now Anderlecht as they're my favorite team and I'm trying to get a grasp on the game again after not playing it seriously since 2005.

Things now looking up after a 3-1 away win at Catania and a 4-0 drubbing of Roma at the Friuli. Picked up a new striker (Luuk de Jong) and a couple of loanees (Josh McEachern and some dude from Arsenal), and the Zebras are off and running.

Of course, this being Italy we're only one defeat from trouble and 3 defeats away from a crisis. But we'll see if I can keep in a job long enough to pick up sufficient Italian language skills to order beers.

davet010 wrote:

Just started a new game with Udinese. Forgotten how much I hate that dual ownership system. Wish I had strikers who could shoot straight.

Dual ownership is annoying. All the requests to buy half your youngsters, not being able to sell partially-owned guys who have inflated values. It can get frustrating.

Since I haven't caved and bought FM12, a Libero/Sweeper FM11 update I guess. The tactic (a 5-3-1-1/3-5-1-1) I've developed is working pretty well but the libero isn't getting forward as much as I would like. I have opened up the center of midfield a bit for him which has helped a bit. The best part of playing him is that the ball gets played out from the back to the defense a lot which helps keep possession.

The team is doing pretty well and I just finished my 3rd season (vacationing between games and not doing press conferences is still how I role). We're solid at the back and get some great results to go along with some baffling ones: last season we lost to Sunderland 4-1 at home 7 days after beating Manchester United 2-0 on the road. Finished 5th last season after 7th in the second.

My transfer business has been great. I bought Nkoulou in my 2nd season and purchased transfer-listed Robin van Persie from Arsenal after he lost his spot to Giusseppe Rossi. Gotze came in for a pretty sum (£12m) but has been disappointing. With Europa League football to play I've been purchasing U-18 players and mixing them into those matches with some veteran players and bench guys. The Europa League is perfect for that in the game though we bombed out of the group stage last season.

Oh and Prederick, when playing as Newcastle I use "Mike Ashley is crazy" as my justification. Other than that, no real-life considerations. It's not like I'm going to be marrying Karren Brady so anything outside of MLS is probably unrealistic.

Roke wrote:

I bought Nkoulou in my 2nd season

:thumbs up:

Have you tried the gung-ho route of teaching your libero "Gets forward whenever possible" PPM?

UCRC wrote:
Roke wrote:

I bought Nkoulou in my 2nd season

:thumbs up:

Have you tried the gung-ho route of teaching your libero "Gets forward whenever possible" PPM?

So far he's refused 3 times. I have set his mentality all the way attacking (20) which means he's at least stepping up ahead of the central defenders when in possession. I can live with that.

I'm sharing this not because I think anyone here particularly cares about the MLS Cup final, but is it just me or does anyone else see a bunch of terrible defensive AI?

The last goal, definitely.

Very reminiscent of Man City defending, 1997/8 vintage.

Udinese's season has petered out, as I finished in 10th after my strikers completely forgot how to score (apart from against Juventus, oddly enough). One notable achievement was getting to the Coppa Italia final, but lost on penalties to Napoli after a 0-0 draw. My reputation is now at national level, but the contract offer from the board was poor and I'm looking for another position - however my standing in the world was demonstrated by the fact that Stoke (Stoke !) laughed off my application after Pulis went to Everton.

City got to the CL final, but got a proper doing from Barca.

Pred, I've seen you playing *it* a lot recently, report.
(I'm mostly interested in new analysis tools, although if you play LLM again, some nuances there may be of less use to you.)
edit: I guess I'm the only one holding out by this point

The FM bug has hit me and I really feel compelled to grab FM12 which is really annoying since it was JUST on sale and I suspect it'll be on sale again soon but I want it now!

I have to finish Skyrim first. And since you don't really finish Skyrim, I should easily last until Christmas sale

Another thing to consider: since this year you can switch leagues on and off, there's absolutely no reason not to start playing demo and then transfer your savegame.

I intend to play a massive career all league (through judicious switching) starting with no rep and club hopping to my dream job. Realistically the 6 month demo would be me starting unemployed and going on holiday applying for jobs.

My Udinese career sputtered to an end after I fell out with the board. No great jobs came up that would consider me, so I started a new game, with 1860 Munchen.

We've just lost a friendly to some French outfit. I look at their details and they are in the French 3rd division, not renowned for quality football. And I've got a transfer budget of...€0.

Good grief, I've got some work ahead of me