First thoughts - looks good, but still long-standing issues

So, I thought I'd share a few first thoughts on the new game.

First some positives.

I think the overall look and feel of the game is excellent. It takes a while to get used to the changes, but once you do, navigation is much better.

The team report with depth charts and players "ranked" for positions is excellent, ditto for the way this works with scouting.

The tactics screen integrating the match preparation stuff is great, and I love the tabbed approach to this.

The player search is excellent, with the auto filtering as you add and remove conditions on the same screen.

Unfortunately, there are still issues with the game that have been there for many years. I went on about them repeatedly as a tester over the past 5 or 6 years. I can't say as I expected to see them fixed in my first year off testing, but I always live in hope.

The first of these is the use of youth players in full-time sides.

In real-life, York City have given one youth-contracted player match time in the last 10 years. They have also given one youth player an early pro contract. That's it.

Beyond that, no-one has had an early contract, and no-one has played while still on a youth contract.

In FM, having run a one year test, 10 different youth players featured, gaining a total of 40 appearances over the season.

You get plenty of news items about "youngest player ever" through the season, as multiple clubs do this over and over again.

The game needs to recognise the difference between pros and youth players, and only use them as a last resort. Fitting an out-of-position pro in should be preferable.

I also think there's too much use by lower league sides of long-term loanees. They seem to do this by default, regardless of what staff they have. this can lead to star players being left out, wasting chunks of the wage budget, because a loanee comes in and takes the place. Have a look around, this is nowhere near as common as FM makes it.

Far more common, and not used at all in FM, is the window-dodging "emergency loan with option to buy". From the Championship down, this is how clubs buy players outside the window. But I dont see it in FM. Loans are always temporary, and no-one seems to try use the loan-to-buy thing.

I also think scouting of lower leagues is poor. Excellent prospects in the non-league just sit there, amybe moving when out-of-contract. There's little sign of reactiveness of bigger clubs to form. Players at LL clubs that are ambitious, have high CA, high PA, just sit there, because there is no movement. Again, look at what we've seen in reality the last few years.

Overall, the transfer market for me still feels too rigid, too samey. I'd like to see some sense of different clubs and managers having different strategies. It's in the Manager Traits to an extent, but doesn't seem to be used by the game.

I still need to test long-term squad stability, always a bugbear of mine. I'd be willing to bet we'll see the same though - smaller squads, fewer coaches, no depth at big clubs, fewer players available for loans, too many players released early. We'll see, unfair to pre-judge. I'll post a reply here later today after running that test.

The match engine is pretty good, but again has some long-standing issues. Setting to "Defender Collect" for keepers is pointless. All that happens is they turn back and the keeper ends up kicking it long anyway. In real-life this season York have been kicking short for a centre-back to bring and pass out, I've tried to make this work, but it doesn't happen. Works okay if you set to feed to a full-back though.

I've also noticed a reluctance of players to turn and shoot when they receive the ball with their back to goal. They seem to lay-off, even if they are 15 yards out and in space.

Overall, it is an improvement, but I worry the underlying mechanics are not there. The same issues that have diminished the game over the past few years feel like they'll be present again.

I also think there's too much use by lower league sides of long-term loanees. They seem to do this by default, regardless of what staff they have. this can lead to star players being left out, wasting chunks of the wage budget, because a loanee comes in and takes the place. Have a look around, this is nowhere near as common as FM makes it.

Dave, nice to see you still here:)

I assume this is England you're talking about?

In South America this actually seems to be the way clubs work, been trying to get my head around the fact that SA clubs will have good players out on long term (fee paid) loans and then take in a host of young loanees (sometimes from parent clubs it's true)

There are lot's of them doing it but one I checked on was Rionegro, they have (irl) 5 of their best 12 players (by CA) out on these loans and a load of young loanees in the first team who are quite poor in comparison (though some are definite prospects)

There must be some kind of (financial?) impetus to this, it seems quite bizarre when you take over one of these clubs though.

So while you're definitely correct about England (were you ever wrong?) it does seem common practise in some places.

Dave, nice to see you still here:)

I assume this is England you're talking about?

In South America this actually seems to be the way clubs work, been trying to get my head around the fact that SA clubs will have good players out on long term (fee paid) loans and then take in a host of young loanees (sometimes from parent clubs it's true)

There are lot's of them doing it but one I checked on was Rionegro, they have (irl) 5 of their best 12 players (by CA) out on these loans and a load of young loanees in the first team who are quite poor in comparison (though some are definite prospects)

There must be some kind of (financial?) impetus to this, it seems quite bizarre when you take over one of these clubs though.

So while you're definitely correct about England (were you ever wrong?) it does seem common practise in some places.

Hi Kriss. Not testing any more (quit this summer), so all my feedback has to be through the mists of GQ again.

Yes, talking about England. That's a really interesting one in SA.

In FM for England, it's more the case that as the game progresses, teams become increasingly reliant on stocking their squad with 3-4 long-term loanees, at the expense of any squad building. It doesn't match real-life, where there may well be one, even two, long-term loanees. but not at the expense of the better, more experienced, members of the squad. They are a supplement to the squad, not a solution (if that makes sense?). In FM, they are just treated like signings.

Why it bothers me is that researchers (I quit that too) spend ages getting the squad right, and as soon as the game starts, you find some of the best players kept out of the side by loanee youngsters who have a higher CA, but actually don't perform as well (lack of experience, lack of the right attributes). It's all very frustrating.

As you've been saying for years AI squad management is weak and regresses more as a game goes on, there's something missing in the AI logic when squad building, and as you point out it seems to centre around it using CA as the god when slecting playing squads but PA for signings (hope that makes sense)

Dave I started a thread about clubs releasing promising youngsters, some of whom had made a good number of appearances in the first team, the thread is here

http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/281494-AI-Clubs-Free-transferring-brilliant-youngsters.

That's a bloody decent critique right there.

Yeh, for a York City supporter Dave knows his game:D

Yeh, for a York City supporter Dave knows his game:D

Ha! You've obviously not seen our media coverage this year: "Football to rival the better Arsenal sides..."

AI squad building and management is my biggest gripe with this game. AI search for new players should be based first on on squad needs (example: wide player good at crossing as manager in charge is inclined to play tall front line), second on their performance, not on their CA (research of statistics such as goals scored, number of assists made, percentage of successful passes, crosses, tackles, headers...) and finally on their potential (long term squad building, player development, resale....). This would help AI team building and hopefully it would prevent human players from easily retaining their best players (now AI doesn't recognize player performance only CA).

I still need to test long-term squad stability, always a bugbear of mine. I'd be willing to bet we'll see the same though - smaller squads, fewer coaches, no depth at big clubs, fewer players available for loans, too many players released early. We'll see, unfair to pre-judge. I'll post a reply here later today after running that test.

Done the testing:

http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/282158-AI-Squad-Management-10-year-analysis

Dave, brilliant to 'see' you back! As always, NAIL. ON . HEAD.

A thought on this:

I also think scouting of lower leagues is poor. Excellent prospects in the non-league just sit there, amybe moving when out-of-contract. There's little sign of reactiveness of bigger clubs to form. Players at LL clubs that are ambitious, have high CA, high PA, just sit there, because there is no movement. Again, look at what we've seen in reality the last few years.

I've also thought for years that managers should have far more 'personality' - i.e. their attributes and traits should be far more effective in the game. Also I'm bored with the human manager attributes being purely cosmetic - so much more needs to be done on manager traits and their activity. This year SI focused on the long-term save by bringing in the 'career' mode; maybe they'll turn their attention to these aspects for next time.

Or maybe we'll be saying the same things this time next year.

A major frustration from years back was when you'd spot such a gem who'd been universally overlooked; as soon as you put in the one and only bid, dozens of AI managers would leap in the next day. Maybe SI over-compensated for that flaw.