This list will help you get over the FM Hump and continue to enjoy the game and all of your saves until the newest edition is released.
One of the problems with Football Manager is that you can get bored from time to time and struggle to keep interested in a save you are playing.
I have this problem 2-3 times a year, and this causes me to lose interest in the game as we have hit the end of the season, and we eagerly await the next edition of the game; we will likely get this feeling more than ever.
There are ways to combat this problem, though, and this is a list of 5 ways to do so.
1. Try A Challenge
One of the problems with FM is so far into a game, you have won everything with one club, and you can lose the challenge of moving forward.
If you try a Football Manager challenge, then you have guidelines for what you need to do regarding moving forward.
There are many challenges such as the Sir Alex Ferguson Challenge, the Journeyman Challenge and many other Football Manager challenges.
Trying one of these gives you goals of what you need to achieve in your save, making it more interesting as you try to meet these goals.
I have tried some challenges, and they never fail to make a save interesting.
Whether you are turning around a failing team and trying to get them back to the heights, they have been before or trying to make a name by starting at the bottom and working your way up.
2. Set Guidelines and Goals
This is similar to trying a challenge, but rather than following the rules or guidelines of a career, you set your guidelines and goals.
This can be done in many ways, whether you base it on the style of play, the type of players you sign, setting long-term plans or anything else.
Setting guidelines in terms of the way you play your save out is a good way of making a save interesting.
Set different guidelines for transfer policies you will follow, such as only signing under 21’s or certain nationalities.
It is something that can change up a game and make it more difficult and more interesting.
You can also set goals such as how you play your manager out.
Many people have saves where they make rules such as having to do the interview and accept a contract if offered by another club.
This works better and making it so you leave when in demand mixes up a game cause it can cause changes when you start to do well at a club, and it makes it interesting in many ways.
Also, you can follow long-term goals.
You can create a five-year plan which makes it interesting.
If you set a goal of having won a league by your 3rd year and don’t, then you have failed by your goals, and one way to react to this is to resign and move to another club.
3. Do Something Different
This may be obvious in terms of making the game interesting and reigniting your passion, but there are many ways to interpret this.
Many people try similar careers over and over again, which can result in dull games as you play similar styles of saves over and over.
I’ve done this before, and it does get boring.
There are only so many times you can play as your favourite club or play as a Premier league struggler before you have done everything you can do with that type of save.
In my two years of playing, I have played as all six teams to have been promoted on that year’s game and have always avoided the drop and turned them into title challengers.
It gets boring.
It’s the same story every time; you sign quality players, avoid the drop, and two years later, you are in the top 4 challenging in every competition.
I normally follow these types of career, so recently have opted to play different types of saves.
I usually stick to playing in England, so I have ventured out to other nations where the requirements for success differ from English leagues.
Playing in different nations brings up different challenges, which make it exciting, and it causes different changes in a game.
4. Write About It
This is something I have tried a few times.
Many people write a Career Storie, where you write about your save and whether you write in a report style or use the manager as the main character in your story, it makes a story interesting.
You end up creating ideas in your head of how you can develop the story further to keep the interest of those reading, which makes a save interesting.
Thinking of how you can interest readers forces you to continue a game, especially when you get feedback.
It isn’t just the interest of readers, though.
When you write a story where you create a narrative story using your manager, you think of ways of developing that character and moving that character forward.
Thinking of different scenarios to make it interesting, and after a while, you become stuck in this story and feel the need to play to develop the story you are writing just so you can see how you move forward.
Writing about a save is always interesting a writing career stories is one of the best ways to reignite your football manager passion.
5. Compare With Friends
The final way of reigniting your passion is to compare saves with friends.
You can share a save with people by finding the save in your files (Documents > Sports Interactive > Football Manager 20xx > games) and sending the file to friends who play the game, and when they save it in the file, they will be able to load that game.
When you do this, you can compare how you all do.
Seeing how you all play out your careers and succeed, or fail, in your careers makes it interesting as it adds a competitive edge.
You will always want to do better than those you play it with.
It’s best to do this when you have either played a game so far through or simmed the game to a certain date and save it, then send it.
Playing from a later date (such as January 2018, 2017/18 Season) adds a different edge to a game as things have already happened within a save.
I have tried this twice, and it has made it hard to step away from the game.
You feel almost forced to play so that you can keep up and see how you do compare to those you share the save with.
See who is the best manager and share the game to reignite your passion.