anybody sharing same feelings?

[nexima]

you start from a lower leauge team - let's say Division 3.. then you make your way up to the world class manager level.. you take your team to premier league, you become champion, you win competitions, you play final at Champions League, you discover and develop many young player then sell them at high values.. and your manager rating is sky high...

so... are you having this "no purpose syndrome" also after playing 5-6 seasons? I wonder if this is a common feeling.. no challenge anymore, same things happening, lost motivation.. so any suggestions how to overcome this and bring the excitement back?

[Dermotron]

Yep, used to that issue. Then I realised it was from 2 keys factors - using CMScout the whole time and using top wibwobbed tactics. Using these kills the game especially on a top to bottom run as you just kill you're own fun. Buying the known good players is a big thing too.

Using Speed Adjuster and not reading any commentary was a big factor too. Just letting the game speed off doing it's thing and only interacting when there was an injury, sending off or at half time ruined the direct interest in how things were going.


But I think one thing you should be bearing in mind is that you are essentially writing a story of sorts. And only 2 stories really work, one where you have a plan after the original plan (and further into the future) and the other is not to have a plan at all. That means you decide what you are going to do when you are at a certain club, not before it. Winning everything isn't the only thing to do with every club.

The reason I compare it to writing a story is everyone can come up with great ideas or original ideas but they have nothing beyond the idea. So if you're key goal is to win everything you have no plan afterwards which is where the slump in interest comes from imo. Yes there are factors like having too much knowledge of the game that can't be undone but the I'd say the last 7 out of 10 jobs I've had have been epic by simply doing a little bit of planning before starting.

[nexima]

well said Dermotron..

maybe i should plan myself some challenges besides winning cups.. honestly i never use wibwobbed tactics or never check player attributes via editor.. but it is a fact that i have a shortlist of proven players which i try to buy in every game..

here comes a challenge to my mind actually : to make the biggest profit put of a player - i mean selling price afetr developing minus the purchasing price of a youngster..

[Cam F]

What I do is rarely buy players, I will sell players if a big fee is offered or if someone wants to move on.

I never use cmscout.

My main thing is whatever country I manage in to try and mostly only have players of that nationality with aim of dominating their national squad before eventually taking over that job.

My teams are mostly a mix of youth and experience players no longer wanted by their clubs.

I use my scouts to find players, a scout to search his own country so every scout has different nationality or by searching all free players at the start of each season to see if any decent kids, totally random and down to luck not cmscout.

[ebfatz]

After you have created your super team and won the lot.
Move to another and as Fergie put it 'knock them off their perch!'

[kuy]

I get that quite often, but after a season or two of boredom players usually want to leave for a new challenge (or they get old and lose ability) so I have to rebuild the squad and it becomes exciting again - building a squad is my favourite part of the game

[eddieC]

Not that I enjoy sounding like the brain-dead morons on Jeremy Kyle but..... "At the end of the day, right Jeremy"... We're playing a pretty old game!!!....

Now granted, we've extracted a great amount of longevity from this one game, but unfortunately it wasn't designed to evolve through the years... and sadly, there comes a point where the game becomes stale and boring and any small thing we may do on OUR part to try and make it feel fresh again, is only temporary...

What we really want is a complete, game engine and/or source code update

So until one of the more generous members of our community wins the lottery and is willing to make such things happen...

We have to make do

I'm just thankful to Locke, Tapani, all of us who upload Patches&Tools and the update team...

Otherwise I doubt half of us would still be playing this game, or at least, we wouldn't have this awesome website and community

[nexima]

Not that I enjoy sounding like the brain-dead morons on Jeremy Kyle but..... "At the end of the day, right Jeremy"... We're playing a pretty old game!!!....

Now granted, we've extracted a great amount of longevity from this one game, but unfortunately it wasn't designed to evolve through the years... and sadly, there comes a point where the game becomes stale and boring and any small thing we may do on OUR part to try and make it feel fresh again, is only temporary...

What we really want is a complete, game engine and/or source code update

So until one of the more generous members of our community wins the lottery and is willing to make such things happen...

We have to make do

I'm just thankful to Locke, Tapani, all of us who upload Patches&Tools and the update team...

Otherwise I doubt half of us would still be playing this game, or at least, we wouldn't have this awesome website and community

totally agree...
until now it has been a big success to keep the game alive thanks to this great website and dear contributors..
moving forward we need something more, something about evolving...

[eddieC]

totally agree...
until now it has been a big success to keep the game alive thanks to this great website and dear contributors..
moving forward we need something more, something about evolving...

And to be clear before anyone starts saying "Well you should buy Football Manager then, that's what you really want!"

NO IT FLIPPIN' WELL ISN'T!!

I dont like FM, I don't wanna' play FM...

I like Championship Manager 01-02, I want to play Championship Manager 01-02

I would just like to see it re-worked, Updated at a deeper level...

Believe me, if I ever came into a substantial amount of money, I WOULD make this happen, and we'd all have it for free too

[Redknapp69]

Interesting thread and I see what you mean

I rarely use wib wob now and although seeing some wonderkids and buying them is fun, I'm now preferring making up my own tactic and developing current players and not buying wonderkids. I have an existing Oct 2014 save that did do some of the former but I'm working under new guidelines (the latter) for when I really get going on the Beez database game I have

Exhausted all the official challenges but they are brilliant for a change and also reading The Eejit's story in Japan made me realise playing random league's has to be done more frequently as well!

[kebabby]

I always have the same problem, becoming bored quite quickly once I achieve a decent squad.

My current game started with Liverpool, won everything over 4 seasons and left middle 5th season to join Wolves who were sat 16th in the Championship. Won the Championship the same season, next season finished 12th in the Premier League, also winning the League Cup. 6th next season, then 4th after that. With 2 games left in 2nd group stage of Champions League I realised I wasnt going to qualify and I was sat 3rd in the Premier League, 26 points behind Liverpool. So I joined Dortmund who were sat 4th - 8 points adrift. We went out against Liverpool in the semis of the Champions League with Saurez (notched up is 63rd goal of the season) scoring 4 against us in the away leg but eventually we won the Bundesliga on goal difference. Liverpool won the Premier and the Champions League. Chelsea, Man City and Man United finished in the bottom half of the league, Arsenal 2nd, Wolves 3rd, Tottenham 4th. Hopefully I get Wolves and not Liverpool in the Champions League next season.

So, the rebuilding of Dortmund begins which will keep me occupied for a couple of seasons but its managing the lower league sides which holds my interest for longer as there is more involved. Dortmund has a 130,000 seater stadium and £150,000,000 in the bank which will make a change from rummaging in bargain bins with Wolves but it soon gets tiresome buying your way through - rather than building a squad over time.

I never use wibwob, I do use Scout because I find the database becomes really small after a few seasons even though its on max. I only use the editor to fix stamina issues where they are under 10 or injury proneness, for some reason injuries is quite ridiculous on my current game - where I have had fifteen first team players out injured at once when at Liverpool. Just checked Dortmund and out of 23 first team players - injury proneness was over 15 on 17 players and I currently have 9 on the injury list with 4 being long term.

I'be been playing since 1997, I agree if they could just delve a bit deeper with this model then it would be the perfect game but its good enough for me as it is. The longest I have gone is 16 seasons taking Kidderminster from the conference to Premier League Champions 5 seasons running and 2 Champions Leagues - I had to increase the stadium capacity to keep us there though.

Play the game how you wish, I personally find wibwob and set tactics a bore. I prefer winning with the team. I dont see the problem using CMScout as the in-game one using scouts is rubbish and the player comparison even worse. In the past I never had to use the editor for anything more than stadium limits but in the last few years using the patches and Tapani etc. I have needed to play around more with the stamina and injury proneness.

[Dermotron]

I don't think the age of the game is a massive contributor to what the OP has issue with. I had the same issue back 10 years ago, so it's really related to the point I made about not having a next step once you've achieved your goal. If you do a bottom to the top run you are always likely to find it boring once all goals are achieved. Whether that be in back to back seasons or 20 seasons.

For example I done a challenge with a club after loading from holiday mode into the game to get the club back in black but if a new board took over I had to start over. Over 10m in debt was about the point a new board took charge so if that happened I had to start over. Anyhow it 6 seasons to get things looking good. Once it did get the club back in black and profitable I had no interest in the save. Which is only natural, it happens in every game you play imo

[nexima]

just an opinion... would it be possible to integrate an algorithm which allows managers to develop their current ability... as far as i know it remains the same throughout the game without improving... if we can manage to crack this, so maybe this can be an additional challenge while playing the game - maximizing the current ability to 200 level..

[Dermotron]

Tapani has that on his to do list here - http://www.champman0102.co.uk/showth...834#post177834

[BobMem]

I was wondering if there could be a simple folder select tool when you first run the game to pick which data files you use. I have about 6 of the amazing updates on my computer and, due to doing different challenges, seem to be constantly moving files into the actual 'Data' folder. Would be a nice addition, but perhaps a little specific to my needs.


ME ME ME ME!

[Psmith]

And to be clear before anyone starts saying "Well you should buy Football Manager then, that's what you really want!"

NO IT FLIPPIN' WELL ISN'T!!

I dont like FM, I don't wanna' play FM...

I like Championship Manager 01-02, I want to play Championship Manager 01-02

I would just like to see it re-worked, Updated at a deeper level...

Believe me, if I ever came into a substantial amount of money, I WOULD make this happen, and we'd all have it for free too

But is it really a money issue? To update the game it would be necessary
to alter the game engine and source code. Aren't those protected by
copyright?

If it was merely a money issue the community could organize a
crowd funding campaign! However, I don't think Eidos or Si would
be willing to sell their game engine...

[JLa]

Interesting thread. I can definately relate to the feeling, the "no purpose syndrome" in the OP. My two cents would be to stay away from other people's tactics - using an invincible wibwob-monster makes the game rather dull after a while. Build something on your own. Of course, if you know exactly how the game engine works, you will probably end up making a super tactic anyway.. The "story" perspective Dermotron raised was brilliant, I've never thought of it that way. Due to CM's shortcomings you could use an editor to overcome some of the hurdles along the way, like turning your club professional, changing manager nationality to get jobs abroad etc, but I wouldn't use any tools for anything else.

A lot of users (including myself, until recently) say you don't want to go FM, which is totally understandable. However, being increasingly frustrated with the lack of possibilites from CM, I have to admit I have spent about 30 hours on the latest FM demo. I haven't bothered to try the full version, but there is this mode called FM Classic in there. It's actually not that bad. Sure, it's slow as hell compared to CM 01/02, but the actual gameplay is as immensive as ever. It's not that bloated either, you concentrate on transfers, tactics and playing matches. Yesterday I played FM for an hour before loading up CM, and I really missed those tiny dots from FM (I don't bother with the 3D version, it looks horrible) running around on the pitch. My point being, if you look past the cosmetics, FMC and CM aren't that different. All the features you miss in CM, well, they're probably there in FMC.

I think I'll end up with purchasing FM soon. Lots of creds to the guys on here, the updates and patches for CM are unbelievable, but there is only so much you can do with a game this old.

I'll probably never delete CM, though. To take Useless Nobodies FC to Champions League glory in a few seasons is strangely satisfying.

[colml]

If I get bored in a job, I usually move onto a new one because I find it keeps my interest in the game for a bit longer. My longest game is about 27 years, and I've had a lot of jobs:

[wato20]

Yes. I have a few ways of overcoming the old "no purpose syndrome"....

I never do use super tactics...
And so if I get somewhere I have earned it.

I will then try and move to a different country and start at the bottom there and build up the new club with my great repuation...

My average game length will be about 12 seasons. Once the youth start retiring, I know its time to start again.

I will then begin a completely different game in a different continent.

After that, I will make a story up and put it in the Story section and although its not playing the game per se, it gives a different level to it and enjoyment too.

And after that I am ready to go back in and start a new career...

U cud set yourself a challenge, like only signing under 21 players, or only signing free players.. etc.

[troza]

I haven't read every post but I will talk as I have a game where I'm at the start of 2049/2050 season in the same club I started.

Make some breaks: one of those problems is that you start making decisions just cause... stop one day, make the pre season in the next and start. I've stopped playing and started playing again lots of times. I must admit that it is hard for me to stop as I really love some of the players of my team and I want to see them succeed. Then I have the national teams... sometimes I just keep going cause I want to do something with the national team and them... well... I just feel like doing another season

I guess that the wib/wob makes the game that easy... I still use 4132pool and with the computer always trying a lot of stuff to make me loose, I'm always searching for the perfect players and a way to keep the team on top. Also... records were made to be broken.

Then I would say that you can always change clubs. My brother does that. I was going to do that until I wanted always more of my club

Then it will be up to you. There is always a time that you just don't feel like going on cause the game is always the same. I just keep going cause I have no time, neither the patience, to do everything again and I feel that it is more funny to build new legends instead of going after the same players again and again and again.

[Kingsley]

The secret for me is to find different ways of playing, different goals to set yourself. Obviously you always try to win every match you play, but why not have some sub goals. For example, when I had a bit of a block recently I found the Olympiacos challenge (Greek Tragedy ?) where year on year you had to slash the wage bill without being able to loan players or sign free agents. The winning was still relatively easy, but it made you constantly think about the finances and what star player you would have to sacrifice next.

Another one is to set up some quicky games. For example start a game with England and Norway as selected leagues and choose to start the season with the Norway date. When it comes to choosing a team, select the English clubs and look at each league table. There will be about a dozen games left in the season, so look for a club cast adrift and try to rescue them, or a minow outside a playoff and try to get them promotted.

[technoir]

You are right. I get this often. I remember first days of this game, i was so excited playing this game that i could barely sleep and eat while i was playing. At start it was very challenging for me so i tried things like CMscout. Then to be honest game was boring. Using all the time the same scheme was fun at the beginning (selling most valualble players in the team and buying tsigalko-like-players) but i came then to conclusion that the game wasnt realistic. Sometimes i really got surprised how my friends are still excited using downloaded wib wob tactics with tsigalko and then bragging about how many trophies they won. But I can really understand that. Sooner or later every computer game gets too easy and you need to find new challenges or make it harder

[JLa]

@colml; do you use the editor a lot to change your nationality and stuff? Moving between countries is usually a pain, but you seem to have been all over the world and in a lot of massive clubs too.

[Craig Forrest]

My advice? Play the challenges.... try out the different leagues....

For me my latest adventure is trying to win everything.... some leagues are fun and I love them, some suck and I try to get through them as fast as possible.... but I'm using my own tactic and not using CM Scout or anything (except when I was managing Senegal and needed to find a lot of Senegalese players)

You find ways of enjoying your game and then it stays fun.... Fodster loves to be his favourite team and win everything every year..... some members like to take teams in the lower leagues and build them up and then start the process over.... at this point, it's all about what you choose to do to get enjoyment from the game

[RuiEsteves]

My advice? Play the challenges.... try out the different leagues....
For me my latest adventure is trying to win everything.... some leagues are fun and I love them, some suck and I try to get through them as fast as possible....

Just our of curiousity, which leagues are the ones you find fun and which you find boring? for what reasons?