Critique of FM08 transfer mechanism - will it ever change?

Firstly, the paragraph to stop half the moans that i will get for having the audacity to complain:

- I appreciate it is hard to make a game

- I appreciate that FM08 is the best management game available

- I appreciate that i personally am unable to produce a better game

- I appreciate that the game is "playable" before i upset anybody from sega by suggesting otherwise

- I appreciate that the game is "more realistic than ever"

- and lastly i do actually think the game is good

So the point of this thread? I am increasingly feeling frustrated with how the game handles transfers and contracts, and more to the point, how this aspect of the game has not been improved (dramatically at least) in any of the recent incarnations of fm.

My question: do the current buyers of FM think that new features such as "board confidence" and "match flow" are more important than fixing the existing faults?

For those wondering what has annoyed me enough to complain i will list what i feel to be the major faults with the FM transfer mechanics and cite examples, i will not be posting screen shots, so don't bother asking, either believe me, try it yourself, or don't bother posting, i'm not going to waste more of my time pandering to the wishes of pedants.

1) Fault number one, The negotiation process. As far as i'm aware this has been in FM for quite some time. For example, i bid £20m for a player, the AI asks for £28m, i therefore bid £25m, the AI asks for £30m, i tihnk they're playing hardball so i decide that the original £28m wasn't that bad so bid £28m, the AI asks for £35m. I cancel the transfer, wait a day, and enquire, the AI asks for £18m. If there is anybody that feels that this is realistic please feel free to step forward.

Now i acknowledge that this has improved for FM08, but it is still far too common an occurance for my liking.

2) AI enquiries. AI makes an enquiry for one of my players, i tell him how much i want, the AI says no thanks. The next week, the AI asks how much for a player, i tell him the same number, the AI says no thanks...repeat indefinitely. This is comical. Firstly, why does the AI have to enquire when i have purposefully set an acceptable value? Secondly, why does the AI think the value will drop every 2 days?

3) AI valuation of players. User is chelsea, AI as AC makes a bid for cech of 12.5m, truly comical, the player is happy, being used regularly and is "indespensible to the club", similarly the club is in no sort of financial trouble, so why does the AI think this is in any way acceptable? So as to test this, i changed it so the user was AC, i made a bid of 12.5m for cech, no prizes for guessing what happened, bid rejected, which leads me to my point, why does the AI appear to think the user has a lower valuation of players than the AI?

4) Contracts. I am £115kp/w under my wage budget, i try signging a player, he asks for £35kp/w the board limit the wage to £30kp/w....why oh why oh why, the club is in a fantastic financial position, the player is substantially better than those in my teams, and there are players with over £50kp/w in my team, so why is the board preventing me form using my wage budget? Similarly, in a different save, for a player that was willing to sign for me i was allowed to offer him £25kp/w, for a player that was not interested in signing for me i was allowed to offer him £90kp/w. When the latter wanted to sing for me i was only allowed to offer him £25kp/w, what the hell is going on????? When a player is not interested i have a sufficient budget, but when the player becomes intersted the board prevent me from offering him the wages i previously could, why does this happen???

5) Contracts - player expectations vs club rep. User is PSV, offered to loan makelele, player rejected, he would rather play in the reserves of the EPL than play in the chapions league, he had been transfer listed for 16months, had not played a single competitive game, why then did he not want to move to a club in the champions league?

Similarly, MANY cases of players turning down wage offers to move to clubs in a lower division for less money, or most hilariously to retire at the age of 23. I know this is to do with club rep, but why can't this be fixed???

6) Wonderkids. Is there some sort of "block" to prevent them from being signed for compensation only? E.g. User as chelsea, offered kroos £120kp/w he turned it down and signed for bayern for much £250p/w, i then enquired for him, bayern asked for £500k, i bid, he then accepted a contract for £1000p/w and moved to me. Why in a space of 3 days did the player go from rejecting £120kp/w to accepting £1kp/w??? He had not signed a pre contract with bayern.

7) Teams/players considering offers individually. example; User is Barce, user bid £30m + Deco for Gattuso, AI said no. AI bid £35m for deco, User accepted, User bid £25m for gattuso, AI accepted..... anybody think this is strange? The same con be applied to players and contract offers, at no point does the aI appear to consider other offers when it debates a response.

8) Selling Players I will firstly point out that boularouz (sorry for spelling) and titus bramble both found employers this summer. Why then is it not possible to sell claude makelele or wayne bridge for £0? Why do some players that would fit into most prem clubs retire aged 25? The way the AI works needs to be changed, in too many cases it is impossible to shift players, i'm not talking about getting a decent amount for them, but just getting rid.

Right, rant over. I fully acknowledge this post is long, and it will therefore plummet form these pages as most of my other threads have done, but hopefully someone from SI will notice it before then.

I just want to know why these things haven't been changed, and whether users would rather half half finished new features like the board confidence rather than fix these problems?

Note, i'm not saying board confidence was a bad idea, just that it was badly executed.

Now i know SI will have an order in which new features or fixes are tackled (a road map or whatever you may call it in the game industry) but i can only express puzzlement that borders on alarm that fixing the existing features ranks below adding new features; sure new features may draw in new customers, but i feel that the majority of long standing customers would rather many of the basic things were fixed.

Cheers

I just sold Lulinha for £22.5m. I'm happy

Lots of reading and some good points

The problem SI have if they release FM09 and all they have done is correct what was wrong in FM08 then they are going to get slated aren't. They need to put new inovations into game with every new release, some will be popular and some won't even work correctly but they have to carry on being inovative otherwise the game will die

Good post!.

I completely agree with all the criticisms.

Excellent post. This happens in LLM as well (obviously with less cash involved and a severe lack of wonderkids).

Question is, when will it get sorted, if at all?

Excellent post.

As it happens I was just trying to note down some of my feelings on the transfer system to make a reasoned post but you seem to have covered almost everything.

One thing which bothers me, and it has been like this for as far back as I can remember - probably even as far back as the CM3 series. You are chasing a player and the AI reject all your bids even if you are offering way over the value of the player. Then suddenly a few weeks later the AI bid the actual value of the player and it is accepted! Of course you can then bid the value of the player and get the bid accepted too. It just seems like the AI know when other AI managers are willing to sell players.

My other gripe with negotiations is when they offer you a player plus some cash. You have no interest in the player, remove him from the deal but ask for exactly the same money. They reject it despite you actually asking for less ! I know in some circumstance clubs may be borderline on their wage budget but I have had this a lot with top clubs who i'm certain have loads of cash flowing.

As for selling players, I will leave you with this statistic. I'm in 2013 and my total transfer spending is around £250,000,000. My total transfer income is £4,100,000. I think i've managed to sell 3 players for money in 7 seasons. I can't even give, GOOD players away, I just don't understand why the AI wont look at them. For me this is worse than it has ever been in FM08. I honestly haven't even had a bid for one of my first team players in 7 seasons ! I had a couple of enquiries a couple of seasons back but that is it. My players are not bad, I have won the PL etc.

Even so far into the game the AI teams are almost the same as at the start of the games, none of them seem to be buying anyone. Occasionally they make a big signing but they never seem to sign any cover, fringe players or potential players.

Another issue is players seem perfectly happy to rot in a teams reserves for 3 years rather than join another club, rejecting contracts because they want "higher appearance fees" etc

To move forward there needs to be significant improvement in the way negotiations work, the transfer market needs a massive increase in activity.

I'm really worried for the future of FM. So much has stagnated, nothing at all has moved forward since the last version. Buying and selling players should be at the forefront of any management game yet it is one of the poorest areas.

The first two points are especially annoying, spot on.

I agree with all the points you made buddy.

Another issue is players seem perfectly happy to rot in a teams reserves for 3 years rather than join another club, rejecting contracts because they want "higher appearance fees" etc

Even worse after a year of rotting in the reserves of an elite club, transfer listed by request due to a lack of first team opportunities, and yet they refuse a transfer to a team in the same division, on the same wages, because they feel it would be a step backward in their careers. Don't worry lad, Real will be bidding on you any day now, just keep plugging away in the reserves, you're sure to get noticed there.

Points 1,2,4,5 and 8 are so abhorrent as to be priority numero uno for FM09.

More than fixing confidence. More (just) than the hilariously inadequate media engine. More than the team reputation being infinitely more important than player ability.

Quality post, well written. I'd say SortitoutSI, but they clearly wont so...

I have seen many silly threads about the game and how it works. Most of them are clearly as a result of people not understanding simple parts of the game e.g. tactics.

But this points made is really valid and they have been so for at least as long as I can remember in this series. A new games comes out every year with small new features, but the main flaw is never being fixed. That flaw is the so-called negotation system and the transfers. It is so-called as there is in fact no negotation. AI ask what the price of the player is, you give AI a realistic price offer, AI says no thanks and do not come back again. I mean, IRL (as this is a simulation) the enquiring club would probably have given a counter offer saying this is how much we are ready to pay. Selling club changes offer and the buying club comes back with counter offer, etc. This does not exist in FM and has never existed, which is the amazing part. No improvement is ever made on one of the most exiting parts in the game for many players.

I also can never get around to understand why a player would like to sit on the bench for a whole season instead of going to a club with less reputation, or even a league down, but which pays 5 times more in salary for just 1 season! Actually, as a simulation, I am always surprised that players would turn down contract offers that 4 - 5 times higher than their current contract and they get to be a key player. For a few very ambitious players that has a secure position in their current teams, but for most other normal players I seriously doubt that this would happen in real life.

I would also like to have anyone from SI to explain why the feature of breaking up the transfer fee in monthly payments has been in the game for so long when it serves absolutely no point under the current economic system in the game. Again, in real life it would be an excellent option and it probably could be in FM as well with a revamped economic system. But as it is now it is just ridiculous and annoying as I have to change the offer from the AI into lump sums instead. For me to offer monthly payments is just pointless as the total fee remains the same and I need to have the total amount of the fee at the time of the transfer anyway.

Again, I just can not understand why this very important feature of the game is not being worked on and revamped between the releases????? Does anyone know???

Excellent post

One more that's been bothering me for years:

You offer a contract to a youngster. He asks for $1000 wage plus $200K signing on fee. You offer him the $1000 he wants but you can now only offer him 50K signing on fee. He rejects you. In order to be able to give him 200K you must offer him $4000 in wages. It doesn't matter if you're Real Madrid and have billions in the bank. It's always the same. I was forced to offer higher wages than requested hundreds of times in order to be able to offer players the requested signing on fees. I just don't see the logic in making signing on fee amounts be relative to the wage you're offering and it's been like this since the CM days.

Originally posted by bterz:

Excellent post

One more that's been bothering me for years:

You offer a contract to a youngster. He asks for $1000 wage plus $200K signing on fee. You offer him the $1000 he wants but you can now only offer him 50K signing on fee. He rejects you. In order to be able to give him 200K you must offer him $4000 in wages. It doesn't matter if you're Real Madrid and have billions in the bank. It's always the same. I was forced to offer higher wages than requested hundreds of times in order to be able to offer players the requested signing on fees. I just don't see the logic in making signing on fee amounts be relative to the wage you're offering and it's been like this since the CM days.

dammit i knew i'd forget something that had annoyed me - this was it! Spot on. Why am i limited by what i can offer as a signing on fee? It's pathetic, granted i don't expect unlimited singing on fees (as that would just be silly) but i'm sick of (for some reason it always seems to be brazilian) teenagers asking for large signing on fees which force me to increase the weekly wage.

I have a solution for the first problem, basically you just ignore the AI and keep offering lower fees but increasing by a reasonable amount each time. Many times they will accept eventually. Just think of the AI offering as them screwing with you so you don't buy their player.

I am having problems with selling players as well though, not just other clubs not buying them but also that the AI negotiation is crap, what they do is offer a low amount then when I ask for higher, this is what happens:

I ask for slightly higher i.e they offer 9 million I say no, I want 10 million and they quit the negotiations immediately, no "how about 9.25 million"s or "how bout a 10% next sale clause?" or "No we're definitely only giving you 9 million but Maybe we can give you a bit of bonus if he scores a couple of goals/plays a couple of internationals/amount of games"

I ask for a lot more because hes a good player i.e Milan wanted Vidic and offered 30 million, I said no I want 70 million (haha, they won't want him now...will they?) and the next offer they give me is the full 70 million non negotiable? No way is that realistic.

P.S. AI Chelsea have lots of trouble getting Makelele to leave also in the game. Problem is the transfer fees. Not good enough for top prem teams but way too expensive for lower down teams because the player themself doesn't realize they should lower their wage demands at a smaller club. When they become free agents their demands are much less, signed Kewell in second season for Middlesbrough and I realized that. He wouldn't sign with us when he was still at Middlesbrough and was demanding a salary of something like 100k but after he left the club he was very willing and also only asked for wages of around 30k.

An improvement in this game is that I have been getting some unexpected bids for players, even ones that don't get many games but are still good and the AI does realize now that the player also wants higher transfer fees for players not on the transfer market.

Another one for the list

How come your players will drop negotiations immediatley just because you try to lower their appearance fee or goal bonus by a fiver but they never seem to notice that youve changed that £3M signing on fee they wanted to £0?

5) is a problem which we complain a lot over the last few release now. still not fixed.

another one that miss from the list is AI accept a lower fees from other AI club than human club, regardless any other factors such as rivalry, etc

IMO, the transfer system in FM2008 is probably the worst in the series yet. I'm also having the problem where I can't accept a negotiated price occassionally, which I'm sure is bug:

http://community.sigames.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/9482076743/m/7412012253

anyone else facing this problem?

Another absolutely infuriating thing is when a player is transfer listed by request, the club has set an asking price and other AI clubs have made bids (and have had siad bids accepted), yet they will reject the bid that I've made of exactly the same value. I'm not even a rival club! Then when I submit an enquiry, the club will come back to me for the asking price and 9/10, when I go to 'view offer', it'll say 'make new offer', rather than 'accept demands'. When I submit this new offer, the offer just gets rejected all the same. I've lost out on some seriously good players over this ridiculous bug. It also never used to happen on prior FMs either.

I'm hoping for a massive restructuring of the transfer module for 09. It's now the part of the game that's in most need of improvement.

I guess FM live will prove a good testbed for many of these new features now, a kind of public beta.

It won't, there's no AI managers in FML.

Money has to become one of the biggest factors in player contracts, not club reputation. The number of players who will not move for significantly more money is silly.

Like above; I can offer 4-5 times or more what a player is currently making only for it to be rejected. Not even close to realistic. Player could be a regular first-teamer at a top club making around 20K p/w. If another club came in and offered 80-100K p/w to be a rotation player, you bet that player would move. Unless the current club offered a similar contract the player would be gone in a heartbeat. Every time.

hi all. i must say i agree with all it has been said here however sometimes i can re-negociate transfers but its a very rare occasion. one example of those negotiations is: i ask how much they want for obefami martins, they say 18M, i say 18M for 24 months, they say 5M+13 for 2 months, i say 5M + 8M for 24 months + 5 M after X goals on league, they answer bid accepted.

here's something i noticed that helps me sell my players:

1-if i'm running less then 3 leagues it's almost impossible to sell any players so i usually run 5 big leagues.

2- as we all know the AI has access to our shortlist and so it tries to buy those players, so when the transfer system is up i make a 2nd shortlist with everyone i can put there, this will make many teams bid for those players and when the transfers take place the teams that sold their players will need new players to replace the ones that left and will bid for my players.

3-if a players is transfer listed but doesnt get any bids then loan him for a year to a team from a higher league. usually the teams that will want him on a loan are teams from the bottom of that league however it seems that league reputation has more effect then club reputation when it comes to increase player value and increase players reputation, this way your player reputation will increase aafter 1 year and maybe one team from that league will buy him next year.

as for buying players i'm finding very hard to buy any good GK, i try akinfeev,ustari,ochoa and they want to leave but clubs wont accept any offer. any other player i can usually buy him if i declared interest in themm or had praised them before making the bid, praising or declaring interest after 1st bid is useless.

i also noticed another thing when buying players, AI says it wants X millions for player, i offer X-4 M, AI answers X-2, and then i accept. going further will result in AI canceling conversations.

Brilliant post and I hope these things will change in the future. Especially this part gets on my nerves:

2) AI enquiries. AI makes an enquiry for one of my players, i tell him how much i want, the AI says no thanks. The next week, the AI asks how much for a player, i tell him the same number, the AI says no thanks...repeat indefinitely. This is comical. Firstly, why does the AI have to enquire when i have purposefully set an acceptable value? Secondly, why does the AI think the value will drop every 2 days?

It's way too repetive. Same teams would keep nagging me with enquiries or same prices week after week, even if clear asking price is set.

Selling players is what bugs me the most but a pretty good summary of exactly where the transfer system needs improving

The valuation of players annoy me the most. I bid upwards of £50m for a player and then the AI asks for around £90m usually so I cancell the transfer. A week later the said player moves from his club to another for less than £30m!!!! Why do they always price you out of the player and then sell him to your rival for pennies in comparison

Im guessing its to make it harder for us.

Well worded OP, not a rant, points well made and I agree that in general, the 'intelligence' of the AI regarding transfers, wages and negociations needs a good kick in the arse.

What I don't agree with is the suggestion that this should be done to the detriment of developing new features.

I want both

And I honestly don't think that the two have an impact on one another. Not to mention necessary: imagine the outrage if FM09 comes and SI say 'no new features, we've spent a year tweaking xyz'. The number of threads saying 'I ain't paying 25 squid for no update that should be free' would be quite large

Another thing that needs to be looked into is the loan system. It is amazing that lower clubs do not rush in to see what the deal is on loanlisted players in top clubs. IRL smaller clubs would at least check with the club to see what kind of deal the loan would involve. If the top club would pay the wages, then I do not think any smaller club would not try to get the loanlisted players.

As it is now, my players can stay loanlisted for a whole season without a single club at least checking on how the loan deal would look like.

Good points there Ched.

IIRC in FM6 I didn't have any problems with transfers and I was actually good at buying players cheaper in the short run. But now, in FM8, it's just as Ched says. And buying players is very expensive in the game as well.

Small clubs in countries like Greece eg won't sell their players for 3m, which is weird, coz players in Greece irl move to big clubs for less than 2m for sure. Only rare examples of over 3m exist.(i'm talking about a transfer from a Greek club to another Greek club, as I usually dedicate most of my playing time managing a Greek club)

I doubt we'll ever get a reply from SI on this. I, along with MANY others, have been moaning about this for years and have little response from SI. I personally would be delighted to get FM09 exactly the same as FM08, except for a new transfer system and AI intelligence!

Originally posted by DJ:

Well worded OP, not a rant, points well made and I agree that in general, the 'intelligence' of the AI regarding transfers, wages and negociations needs a good kick in the arse.

What I don't agree with is the suggestion that this should be done to the detriment of developing new features.

I want both

And I honestly don't think that the two have an impact on one another. Not to mention necessary: imagine the outrage if FM09 comes and SI say 'no new features, we've spent a year tweaking xyz'. The number of threads saying 'I ain't paying 25 squid for no update that should be free' would be quite large

I remember cm01/02 (i think it was that one) where it was just a data update and and few bug fixes compared to the previous CM, and they released it for 15 or 20 quid, i'd quite happily accept this for fm09 if they just fixed existing issues, and let them work on new features for fm10, but i suspect the potential loss of new customers will cause SI to add half finished new features rather than fix the existing ones. a pity realy.

The amazing thing about this thread is not one person (yet!) has come in and said "no you are wrong, the transfer system is brilliant". I think that speaks volumes about the feeling towards the current system.

1) One of the biggest problems in the game for me. It seems that the AI has no memory of what happened before hand. If this is the case, then this needs to be looked at.

2) Same as 1), the AI needs a memory. And why are they completley incapable of negotiating when they are buying a player.

3) Another massive floor in the transfer system. Clubs need to rate players on their age, and squad status. When I enquire about a 26 year old valued at £8m, with a squad status of rotation, I don't expect to be tolf the club want £35m for him. That would be unrealistic even if he was a Key Player. Teams need to value players based around their value to the team, ie, Key Players, First Team, Hot Prospects - 2-3 times their value. Rotation, Decent Youngsters - twice their value at the very most, generally nearer the players value. Backup, Not Needed - sell for around players value or less.

4) I'm in two minds over this. It is frustrating when the player wants just a couple thousand more then you are allowed to offer him, but, some clubs like to keep very tight control over their finances. Whats needed here is the ability to talk to the chairman and ask him if he will allow us to pay the player higher then what he is presently allowing us.

5) Never experienced this myself.

6) This seems to have something to do with youth contracts. Before signing a pre-contract or professional contract the player wouldn't move to your club for all the money in the world, but as soon as this has been signed, he'll move to you for just a couple hundred. This doesn't seem to be the case if the club is much less reputable though.

7) No experince of this.

8) This was a problem in FM07, but I haven't found it to be in FM08. In fact, I'd say I'm finding it a bit too easy to sell transfer listed players for their value or higher. Sissoko was valued at £4.8m, I transfer listed him and set his value at £7.25m and several clubs offered this. Only a couple clubs had the sense to negotiate the offer in search of a better deal (which, again, shows a lack of sense from the AI).

One thing I would like to add is the lack of sense the AI has over the players it buys and the control over the squad. On FM07, I saw Arsenal with three first team goalies. When the transfer window opened, they bought another, yet failed to transfer list any of these, so in their first team, they had four goalies, two of which, were likely never to be used. I hoped this would be improved for FM08, but it seems it hasn't. In the first game I played. Portsmouth had six strikers, yet were only playing one up front. Only two were playing regularly, two were playing occassionally (mainly sub appearences) and two had yet the other two failed to play a single game throughout the season, yet none of the ever found there way onto the transfer list.

Originally posted by T-Bag:

The amazing thing about this thread is not one person (yet!) has come in and said "no you are wrong, the transfer system is brilliant". I think that speaks volumes about the feeling towards the current system.

My concern there is that a group of us want realistic transfers at realistic levels of churn and frequence, and another group want to be able to buy everyone they choose.

It's going to be difficult for SI, althought welcomed, to create something more realistic without upsetting the people who feel they should be able to sell everyone for loads and buy everyone regardless of cost.

transfers and tactics should always be most important in fotnall manager sim.

stuff like media,match flow,teamtalks,confidence,advicer should be long down before the transfers and tactics.

Adding again to the list - players deciding that they are not interested before they have even seen the offer. Wouldn't it make sense for a person to first see what is offered before saying no??

Point 1 seems to have massively improved in FM08 to me. I actually now get teams negotiating... If too many other sides are interested, value goes up. If i'm a long bidder, they will come down to meet me half way.

I also dislike the fact that setting a player's transfer status to "not available for transfer" seems to make absolutely no difference to the number of teams enquiring about said player. If anything, I could swear the number of enquiring teams actually increases.

Also, I don't like how the only way to prevent a player becoming unsettled is to ask for a ridiculously high price for him from enquiring teams. This definitely wouldn't happen in real life. And what's more, the AI teams seem inable to take the hint that he's not for sale. Sometimes teams will rpeat enquiries EVERY DAY for anything up to 2 weeks, despite each time being told that he won't be leaving for less than £100million. And then, for the sole reason to **** me off, they make a bid of £0 which they FORCE me to reply to by setting a week time limit to my responce.

I'd like to see the option in FM09 to file harrassment suits against repeat-enquiring managers. Or better still, improved manager AI.

Hey, I got more:

1) Clubs (in the Icelandic league no less) buy a player for 1 million, then sell him a year later for 30k (after he played the whole season in their first team)

2) Players who have relatively low PA, but perform well because they have high values in key attributes, never attract any interest from AI clubs. On the other side of the spectrum, dipsticks who average 6.40 per season are involved in multimillion deals every year thanks to their high PA.

3) It's far too easy for semi-pro and amateur clubs to attract foreign players. As a result, after a few years all semi-pro Scottish clubs are filled almost entirely by English players (because of the different CA/PA guidelines for each league, English players will be typically better than their Scottish counterparts while demanding the same wages - a pure win scenario). The same applies for all small league - big league combination, eg. Wales - England, N. Ireland - England, Iceland - Denmark, etc.

And that "player retiring at 23" bug is simply infuriating, especially when you play as a national team manager.

I agree with all of the problems raised in this thread.

I'm finding it hard to take the game seriously when the game economy is as inflated as it has a tendency to get after a few seasons. Top clubs are spending ludicrous sums of money for average players.

The AI doesn't seem to have a sound strategy for keeping their squads competitive, so I'm ending up leading the race with no one ever getting competitive (because they're signing **** players for most of their transfer budget, not signing enough backup and squad players, not signing players for the positions where they are weaker than me)

Strips me of any enjoyment after building up a first class team. I still want a challenge! Winning everything with ease gets boring after a while...

Oops, was a bit quick on the post button there.

The censored word in my previous post can be replaced by "bad".

"not signing players for the positions where they are weaker than me" <- I actually meant "not signing players in areas where they are weak"

Sorry about that...

Originally posted by Mygel:

Adding again to the list - players deciding that they are not interested before they have even seen the offer. Wouldn't it make sense for a person to first see what is offered before saying no??

i think this is just a side effect of players ignoring you because of the club or leagues (often marginally) lower reputation, but it's still very silly.

Originally posted by Ched:

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Mygel:

Adding again to the list - players deciding that they are not interested before they have even seen the offer. Wouldn't it make sense for a person to first see what is offered before saying no??

i think this is just a side effect of players ignoring you because of the club or leagues (often marginally) lower reputation, but it's still very silly. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Yes it is the reason. But, as you said, it is silly that they have already made the decision without seeing the offer. If you offer a 1 billion p they would still say no before you even mentioned what you offered. Very unrealistic and it must be quite easy to fix in the game.

Didn't fix it last year, didn't fix it this year, probably won't fix it next year.

To be honest this has been my #1 gripe about the game for a while now. It's practically impossible sometimes to sell your reserves unless you sell them for about a grand, you usually have to pay at least 4-5x a player's worth to buy him.

Something else I've noticed this year is that I'll try and offer out my young promising players out on loan to get some 1st team experience (making sure they're marked as 'eligible for loan') and nobody bothers offering. The game helpfully tells me that transfer listing them might help. I DON'T WANT TO BLOODY SELL THEM!!!!!

Unlike a lot of people I don't think this edition of the game is bad at all, but I am quite ****ed off that this is still an issue.

To the OP:

Bravo, mate. Well said.

The transfer system is flawed in a lot of ways and I think I agree with everything said so far.

Number 1 in the original post is the main annoyance for me. A couple of hours ago when playing I had this sort of scenario, but before it got to the stage where the AI was demanding £20m for their player whose valued at £1-1.5m I just accepted their demands with the 40% sell-on clause, as I simply couldn't be bothered with a summer long saga. I always get the impression that the AI would rather receive £1m + a 40% sell-on clause for a player, than £20m up front, and considering the player in question earlier will never transfer for £20m, that is ridiculous, and was an obvious flaw on the last game as well.

AI enquiries are also extremely repetitive and silly. I have a very promising left back who has attracted a lot of interest, and so I get a lot of enquiries. I just reject them all though as he's on a 5-year deal and is happy, and so I don't need to sell. That doesn't stop the same teams coming back the next week with an identical enquiry/bid though. The AI should be able to realise that they've not long made an enquiry for a player, and therefore if they're going to do it again it has to be a bid, or an improved offer.

Players turning down first team football because of the length of contract is also annoying, especially when you're trying to get rid of a player. On the last game there were several occasions when a player I had had 1 year left on his contract, but he refused to move because of the length other teams were offering, even though he'd play first team football and wouldn't be on my horrible punishing training schedule I have for players I hate in my team. Even when you fined them for no reason they'd still stay put, and would end up being released and with no club at all.

Finally there's the issue of players retiring too early, despite their obvious talent. I was playing with Hammerfest on FM07 and I remember there being this teenage Finnish striker with 7 star potential (I was a top Norwegian Premier Division side), who refused to sign for me, even though I was the only club interested (Why aren't other clubs interested in such a good player?), and I offered him a very generous contract. He went on to retire aged about 18 or 19, after deciding a very large salary was not for him. I somehow doubt he had a job earning anywhere near that amount lined up in his next career.

I also played with New Zealand on FM2006, where every year there'd be atleast one or two of my squad members who'd get released, and wouldn't be signed by anyone. The way I got around it was by adding a manager to an Australian club side (I played no club football on that save and I only loaded the Australian league as you need a league loaded) and signing them there, just so they'd stay in the game. I never ever cheat on FM, but I had to there, because it would have eliminated all fun if I didn't step in and do something. These players weren't world class, but some of them were good enough for the A-League, and the rest would have done very well in the New Zealand Championship. Also on that save I was annoyed by the way very talented New Zealanders who played in New Zealand were sometimes completely ignored, and never left their home country, therefore never becoming pro.

So yes, the transfer system needs a complete revamp. Anybody who disagrees isn't playing FM.

Great topic!!!

This year SI HAVE to completly rebuilt the transfer/contract system.

1) Why there is the option for human manager to loan a player with a buy price clause when it's completly useless at the moment? (I still have to manage one of them successfully nor the AI do this...).

2) As i said in another topic in Italy co-ownership is the main form of transfer (this summer were discussed over 350 co-ownership and 50 more were created this year...) yet it happen in very few occasion in FM2008

3) Straight swap of player or swap with fee of player between clubs is the second form of transfer in Italy (except for the four top clubs) yet i see it 2 times in 4 year of savegame...and even when i manage in premiership and load italian league it doesnt happen...very realistic

Originally posted by Fantazm:

Didn't fix it last year, didn't fix it this year, probably won't fix it next year.

i have a horrible feeling you're going to be right

I'm just praying for a response fomr SI sometime this week to allay my fears.