Football Manager 2014 - Update 14.2.2 - Feedback Thread

[WayneRomney]

I'm 38 years old, soon 39. I smoke 20-22 cigarettes per day. Quite often I eat meat, I eat french fries, drink coke (doesn't snort), drink absurd amounts of coffee. I drink vodka and beers regularly, often times I go nuts at the dessert buffet. I fly across the Atlantic 8 times per year. Sometimes I drive in heavy traffic in South America without using a seat belt.

Will I ever live to see the day when teammates stop colliding in each other and lose the ball in FM?

[braceletwinner]

I'm 38 years old, soon 39. I smoke 20-22 cigarettes per day. Quite often I eat meat, I eat french fries, drink coke (doesn't snort), drink absurd amounts of coffee. I drink vodka and beers regularly, often times I go nuts at the dessert buffet. I fly across the Atlantic 8 times per year. Sometimes I drive in heavy traffic in South America without using a seat belt.

Will I ever live to see the day when teammates stop colliding in each other and lose the ball in FM?

Reminds me of a Woody Allen quote: "You can live to be 100 if you give up all of the things that make you want to live to be 100."

[WayneRomney]

Reminds me of a Woody Allen quote: "You can live to be 100 if you give up all of the things that make you want to live to be 100."

Which bracelet did you win my friend?

"If you wanna win 12 bracelets, you have to have white magic"

[Richard76]

Fantastic, that's twice this has happened to me now:

[RTHerringbone]

Fantastic, that's twice this has happened to me now

Please, please upload a .pkm to the Bugs Forum. That one gets right on my teats.

[WayneRomney]

Fantastic, that's twice this has happened to me now:

What are we looking at here? A saved penalty or something much more sinister?

[jon157uk]

[video=youtube;A0eBA6oHXII]

It's my tactics! I gave my centre back instructions to charge down his own goalkeeper to give the opposition a sporting chance...

Now, realistically this just would not happen because someone, somewhere would be shouting 'LEAVE IT' or 'MY BALL'.

It's rubbish....

Oh yea and by the way, the keeper had no need to rush out and try blasting it because it came from a long clearance from their fullback, so he could have just picked it up.

[HUNT3R]

Fantastic, that's twice this has happened to me now:

I'm guessing the GK came off his line? Love how we're always playing guessing games in this thread...

[Jaskiew]

May I ask, is there anywhere i can recommend or endorse a player to be called up for International Cap?

[BiggusD]

There's nothing more annoying than someone who's so often wrong passing off his nonsense as established fact. Just because YOU don't understand how to do things doesn't mean they cant be done.

Well, you're passing off your opinion as fact just there...

[braceletwinner]

Which bracelet did you win my friend?

Not a WSOP bracelet. It was back in 2004, a mid-sized tournament. I took the name because A) They gave me a bracelet, and B) 'braceletwinner' was available when I signed up for gmail.

I actually won a much bigger tournament a couple of years later, but no bracelet.

[RTHerringbone]

What are we looking at here? A saved penalty or something much more sinister?

Keeper sneaking off his line before a penalty kick.

If you are involved in a shootout and he does it for the first one, he tends to do it every time.

[MrPompey]

Keeper sneaking off his line before a penalty kick.

If you are involved in a shootout and he does it for the first one, he tends to do it every time.

I've raised this issue a long time ago so it should be a well known one. In mine the keeper made the save on his 6 yard box, the power of the shot almost took him off the pitch - bizare to watch!

[mhaffy]

Keeper sneaking off his line before a penalty kick.

If you are involved in a shootout and he does it for the first one, he tends to do it every time.

I noticed this, for first time in recent penalty shoot out. Cech saved 1st penalty with what looked like a blatant forward rush towards 6 yard box, then did same again for next kick. Won penalty shootout.........

[YOUNGSTEVE]

Fantastic, that's twice this has happened to me now:

I remember these quaint little dots about 10 years ago. Didn't know they were still in the game.

[Svenc]

[video=youtube;A0eBA6oHXII]

It's my tactics! I gave my centre back instructions to charge down his own goalkeeper to give the opposition a sporting chance...

Now, realistically this just would not happen because someone, somewhere would be shouting 'LEAVE IT' or 'MY BALL'.

It's rubbish....

Oh yea and by the way, the keeper had no need to rush out and try blasting it because it came from a long clearance from their fullback, so he could have just picked it up.

If this is intentional, that is the ME simulating player communication gone bad resulting in this, I find this absolutely fantastic, tbh. Entertaining video either way, somebody should one day do a "Football Manager bloopers" compilation, kind of like they do it with the real sports.

[DCBeast]

Please please PLEASE fix the defending corner issues. This is just awful right now. The norm is NOT for a defender to head the ball straight back into the six yard box, you clear it as far away from goal as possible. Unfortunately, the former is the norm in the ME right now. Also, either fix what constitutes a clear cut chance or get clear cut chance conversion rates nearer to real life. http://eplindex.com/47486/clear-cut-finishing-analysis-suarez-aguero-giroud-rooney-compared.html

Ditto. Defending corners has been really poor this year and has cost me 6 points in the last 3 games with Napoli. I'll be dominating a game whilst 1-0 up and then they get a corner and score from it. Absolutely shocking. I know stuff like that happens IRL but not to this extent. Ridiculous.

[pret]

After walking a tightrope for months on end in my first season with Pompey (where I was expected to win the league (I was rock bottom after 10 games)) I managed to salvage the season somewhat and get to the playoffs. Naturally the board are still disappointed with me, yet they've offered me a new contract and were delighted when I accepted it. I've not even played the playoff final yet and I'm being offered a new deal. Even if we go up I'll still have let them down pretty badly.

[keeper tom]

In my opinion FM hasn't been as good since the new ME was put in place but whenever I make this claim I'm looked down on. I like to see improvement in games and do feel Sports Interactive have done this when it comes to transfers, contracts, training and tactics etc but when it comes down to the most important part "Match day" I feel let down and all the hard work you put in is just a waste of time.

Yes FM is the best Football Management game in the world but it really does need improving and could do with another competitor to rival it. When you are top dog it's easy to sit there and not do much because "you are the best" and no one will knock you off your perch.

[Ackter]

That last part is nonsense and quite insulting tbh. SI has no competition because noone could compete with them. Theyve never been a team to compete with others - theyve always competed against their own expectations. Their own expectations wont change just because their competitors gave up.

[MichaelBrown]

That last part is nonsense and quite insulting tbh. SI has no competition because noone could compete with them. Theyve never been a team to compete with others - theyve always competed against their own expectations. Their own expectations wont change just because their competitors gave up.

I think some people forget that the developers themselves are probably huge fans of the game so they don't want to present a half finished piece.

[Svenc]

Well, there's ups and downs in terms of ME development. It's an always ongoing proccess, it has to be. It's always been admirably good as far as I'm concerned, except maybe the version that was around when the 2013 public demo went live (that both participating teams just backed all the way off when defending regardless by default so that you had lower league sides being able to combine all the way through into a top division's third regularly had to be noticed, for instance). Yet after all, SI are going the full 90 minutes and don't hold back on anything as opposed to contemporary video game based on football. On average the ME logics have certainly improved in significant key areas throughout the years. Still, it's ups here and downs there. Take dribblings, for instance. Although the ME staff is certainly aware of it, the dribbling statistics are nowhere near as close to real-life as they used to be.

Now the number of match actions has increased considerably in between FM 2012 and FM 2013, because rather than every 1/8 of a second of football it simulates every quarter of a second now, and since FM 2013, for the first ever time in the series' history, on default speed settings in the match viewer, one second real-time=one second in-game (the clock used to tick down a good deal faster before. Admittedly, when you actually look at the match incidents that get registered by the statistics as successful dribblings/runs with ball, you'll sometimes wonder why, it's a very liberal statistics sometimes, kind of like the CCC stat. Still that can't be the sole reason for this.

Here's some real-life statistics, with either source considering 4-5 successful runs per match top class:

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1773581-top-10-dribblers-in-la-liga-this-season

http://www.sportskeeda.com/2013/07/30/stats-top-10-players-with-successful-average-dribbles-per-game/

FM 2012 (full detail): http://i.imgur.com/eLZ0HC4.png

http://i.imgur.com/It838KL.png

Here's FM 2014 (full detail): (notice the number of merely "decent" dribblers also making successful runs like top of the world, which impacts upon scouting and obviously performance as well rather than mere "cosmetics", i.e. statistics not aping real football): http://i.imgur.com/Mj8HUV9.png

What is also immediately apparent is that when you have leagues loaded you don't simulate in "full detail", the numbers are drastically different for those, and much more comparable to real football.

[Beestonite]

Well, there's ups and downs in terms of ME development. It's an always ongoing proccess, it has to be, and honestly, it's always been admirably good as far as I'm concerned. After all, SI are going the full 90 minutes and don't hold back on anything as opposed to contemporary video game based on football. On average the ME logics have certainly improved in significant key areas throughout the years. But although the ME staff is certainly aware of it, the dribbling statistics are nowhere near as close to real-life as they used to be. Now the number of match actions has increased considerably in between FM 2012 and FM 2013, because rather than every 1/8 of a second of football it simulates every quarter of a second now, and since FM 2013, for the first ever time in the series' history, on default speed settings in the match viewer, one second real-time=one second in-game (the clock used to tick down a good deal faster before. Admittedly, when you actually look at the match incidents that get registered by the statistics as successful dribblings/runs with ball, you'll sometimes wonder why, it's a very liberal statistics sometimes, kind of like the CCC stat. Still that can't be the sole reason for this.

.

Really enjoyed reading through this interview. However, I don't feel your point (in Bold) is quite valid, is it? You're saying that the number of simulations has increased because it's now every 1/4 of a second compared to every 1/8th. There are eight, 1/8's in a second and four 1/4's. Therefore they have taken the ratio down, as Miles implied. Maybe I haven't read that right, I don't know, but it seems that way to me.

Maybe there was too much going on in the past and they can control it better with less simulations per second? Judging by his 'spaghetti' analogy it would make sense.

[Svenc]

Really enjoyed reading through this interview. However, I don't feel your point (in Bold) is quite valid, is it? You're saying that the number of simulations has increased because it's now every 1/4 of a second compared to every 1/8th. There are eight, 1/8's in a second and four 1/4's. Therefore they have taken the ratio down, as Miles implied. Maybe I haven't read that right, I don't know, but it seems that way to me.

Maybe there was too much going on in the past and they can control it better with less simulations per second? Judging by his 'spaghetti' analogy it would make sense.

Depends how you interpret it, I guess. If you interpret it as: Calculations happen for every quarter of a second of ME play, then that would be correct, I guess. Still, the number of actions of a match has increased in between FM 2012 and 2013. It is most evident in the passing statistics. A common complaint was that you'd never get the total number of passes looking anywhere close to Barca when managing Barca, and that Xavi's stats never looked like Xavi (blasphemy! ):

The AI pulls off such "feats" regularly off now itself:

Also notice the differences in distances run. Still, more actions (longer play) doesn't necessarily translate to more complicated calculations, I guess.

edit: Funnily, SI seem to have forgotten (or not bothered) to update the algorithm that does the quick calculations for competitions you don't have on "full detail", which is not the match engine per se. The number of passes there are significantly lower, and a lot of other statistics reflect pre FM 2013 just as well. Hope they do, as obviously that skews things quite a bit. I found player statistics quite decently reflecting attributes even for those competitions you didn't fully strain your system with, but had uploaded into the save regardless. But with the excessive dribblings only showing in the full ME and most other statistics mirroring FM2012's stats and previously just as well, it obviously is more difficult to estimate how players might behave in the ME rather than the quick sim.

To illustrate how huge that gap has become:

This is a Spanish Super Cup first leg, with the entire competition not simulated fully. Whilst attributes in general are reflected (notice Messi's and Neymar's runs, for instance, Mascherano's tendency to dive into lots of tackles), distances, passes, general number of actions are miles off the full ME now. It's both matches of football, aye, except in one the ref had enough after 60 minutes and the other went all the way.

[forameuss]

Depends how you interpret it, I guess. If you interpret it as: Calculations happen for every quarter of a second of ME play, then that would be correct, I guess. Still, the number of actions of a match has increased in between FM 2012 and 2013. It is most evident in the passing statistics. A common complaint was that you'd never get the total number of passes looking anywhere close to Barca when managing Barca, and that Xavi's stats never looked like Xavi (blasphemy! ):

The AI pulls off such "feats" regularly off now itself:

Also notice the differences in distances run. Still, more actions (longer play) doesn't necessarily translate to more complicated calculations, I guess.

edit: Funnily, SI seem to have forgotten (or not bothered) to update the algorithm that does the quick calculations for competitions you don't have on "full detail", which is not the match engine per se. The number of passes there are significantly lower, and a lot of other statistics reflect pre FM 2013 just as well. Hope they do, as obviously that skews things quite a bit. I found player statistics quite decently reflecting attributes even for those competitions you didn't fully strain your system with, but had uploaded into the save regardless. But with the excessive dribblings only showing in the full ME and most other statistics mirroring FM2012's stats and previously just as well, it obviously is more difficult to estimate how players might behave in the ME rather than the quick sim.

To illustrate how huge that gap has become:

This is a Spanish Super Cup first leg, with the entire competition not simulated fully. Whilst attributes in general are reflected (notice Messi's and Neymar's runs, for instance, Mascherano's tendency to dive into lots of tackles), distances, passes, general number of actions are miles off the full ME now. It's both matches of football, aye, except in one the ref had enough after 60 minutes and the other went all the way.

That's actually really interesting. I've never linked the having less calculations to that kind of stuff. Obviously, it makes perfect sense, but never made that connection.

Your point about full sim is good too - I guess that's a trade-off people should be aware of. I'm quite happy I'm pushing my laptop hard now in terms of which leagues I'm simming.

[Beestonite]

Depends how you interpret it, I guess. If you interpret it as: Calculations happen for every quarter of a second of ME play, then that would be correct, I guess. Still, the number of actions of a match has increased in between FM 2012 and 2013. It is most evident in the passing statistics. A common complaint was that you'd never get the total number of passes looking anywhere close to Barca when managing Barca, and that Xavi's stats never looked like Xavi (blasphemy! ):

The AI pulls off such "feats" regularly off now itself:

Also notice the differences in distances run. Still, more actions (longer play) doesn't necessarily translate to more complicated calculations, I guess.

edit: Funnily, SI seem to have forgotten (or not bothered) to update the algorithm that does the quick calculations for competitions you don't have on "full detail", which is not the match engine per se. The number of passes there are significantly lower, and a lot of other statistics reflect pre FM 2013 just as well. Hope they do, as obviously that skews things quite a bit. I found player statistics quite decently reflecting attributes even for those competitions you didn't fully strain your system with, but had uploaded into the save regardless. But with the excessive dribblings only showing in the full ME and most other statistics mirroring FM2012's stats and previously just as well, it obviously is more difficult to estimate how players might behave in the ME rather than the quick sim.

To illustrate how huge that gap has become:

This is a Spanish Super Cup first leg, with the entire competition not simulated fully. Whilst attributes in general are reflected (notice Messi's and Neymar's runs, for instance, Mascherano's tendency to dive into lots of tackles), distances, passes, general number of actions are miles off the full ME now. It's both matches of football, aye, except in one the ref had enough after 60 minutes and the other went all the way.

Good work indeed here Sir!

Very interesting stuff. ME must be giving a truer reflection of what a certain individual's ability is nowadays, which any user can then take from the game and make a more informed decision as whether to purchase or not or target during a game etc.

[forameuss]

The one piece of feedback I'd give about FM14 is that it's a lot more unforgiving than in previous years.

I was a player who bumbled around tactically in FM. I would get the best squad I could, then fit them into a symmetrical formation (usually) with whatever player roles they excelled at. My team instructions and shouts were Paul Ince levels of insight (shoot! attack! Wiiiiiiiin!) but I was fairly successful, winning pretty much every tournament I went for.

Now we come into FM14, and I've struggled for success anywhere. It's not sufficient to throw players at a whiteboard and hope that they form a decent team. You really have to put the work in. Now I know a lot of people are going to jump on that and say "See, that means it's a rubbish game", but I am in no way saying that. I think, because of this, FM14 is comfortably the best edition, even disregarding everything else. I know it won't please the people who just want an instant win button without really working for it, but for those that actually want a challenge, it's perfect for that.

[Beestonite]

The one piece of feedback I'd give about FM14 is that it's a lot more unforgiving than in previous years.

I was a player who bumbled around tactically in FM. I would get the best squad I could, then fit them into a symmetrical formation (usually) with whatever player roles they excelled at. My team instructions and shouts were Paul Ince levels of insight (shoot! attack! Wiiiiiiiin!) but I was fairly successful, winning pretty much every tournament I went for.

Now we come into FM14, and I've struggled for success anywhere. It's not sufficient to throw players at a whiteboard and hope that they form a decent team. You really have to put the work in. Now I know a lot of people are going to jump on that and say "See, that means it's a rubbish game", but I am in no way saying that. I think, because of this, FM14 is comfortably the best edition, even disregarding everything else. I know it won't please the people who just want an instant win button without really working for it, but for those that actually want a challenge, it's perfect for that.

That, the bit in bold? It's because the game is rubbish, I think you'll find.

Taking my idiot cap off. I agree, the game has progressively become more difficult over the last three to four years for me. I'm no expert by any stretch and therefore I struggle more than others. I look at people like dafuge, to name but one and see them win almost everything instantly. While I admire that, I think I prefer struggling in my crappy little world actually. Makes it slightly more interesting. Surely winning all the time must be boring. Heck, even on FM12 which everyone says was really easy, I struggle at times. Must be my tactics.

Edit: Saying that, I do look at the successful career threads and notice that a lot tend to stick with the bigger clubs. I never take a big club on, ever. That would make it a lot easier for me I guess, if I did.

[forameuss]

That, the bit in bold? It's because the game is rubbish, I think you'll find.

Taking my idiot cap off. I agree, the game has progressively become more difficult over the last three to four years for me. I'm no expert by any stretch and therefore I struggle more than others. I look at people like dafuge, to name but one and see them win almost everything instantly. While I admire that, I think I prefer struggling in my crappy little world actually. Makes it slightly more interesting. Surely winning all the time must be boring. Heck, even on FM12 which everyone says was really easy, I struggle at times. Must be my tactics.

At the risk of sounding like I'm hating on the good ones from the careers forum, I get very bored reading careers where the managers win absolutely everything every time. I admire the achievement of course, but there's no real interest in reading on when you can pretty much tell it's going to end with the manager being paraded around Wembley and knighted. I like to see players having trouble. I like to see the underdog. I love the unexpected. I think with FM14, you have to work that little bit harder, which for me makes it more satisfying when you do win. But then, like I said, it doesn't suit the ones who just want an arcadey game that pushes all their emotional buttons and tells them how awesome they are.

[left_behind]

.Specific "Instructions for any player in this position" is not practical if you play with more than one initial tactic. Depending on my tactics i want that same player in that same position to have different roles. This option should be under the hierarchy of the tactic i choose, instead of being applied everytime i switch between other saved tactics.

.Still not possible to maitain the player positions when switching between my three initial tactics. AMF appears as a DM (and vice-versa), my MCR swaps position with the MCL.

The first one is a suggestion that would be very helpfull; the second one should have been fixed with the 14.2 update.

[Beestonite]

At the risk of sounding like I'm hating on the good ones from the careers forum, I get very bored reading careers where the managers win absolutely everything every time. I admire the achievement of course, but there's no real interest in reading on when you can pretty much tell it's going to end with the manager being paraded around Wembley and knighted. I like to see players having trouble. I like to see the underdog. I love the unexpected. I think with FM14, you have to work that little bit harder, which for me makes it more satisfying when you do win. But then, like I said, it doesn't suit the ones who just want an arcadey game that pushes all their emotional buttons and tells them how awesome they are.

Ditto. With 8 characters.

[Moose-Stuff-For-Money]

Is anyone finding that the 'poor first touch' animation is a little odd. In my game when a player has a poor first touch it seems that the ball bounces a yard or so away but it also loks like the player himself slides back a couple of yards, like the ball haas literally knocked him away. Also doesn't seem much variation in the poor first touch, I don't see players taking their eye of the ball and it going under their foot or getting caught up under their feet, just a small thing like.

I'm actually very much enjoying the game, it has taken me a while mind. What I decided to do was try a save somewhere I never managed before and see if it piqued my interest so I started with Seattle in the MLS and lo and behold it did, built a 4-2-3-1 formation which may be my favourite FM tactic I have created in any FM, and in a succesful first season I started a new save with Nottingham Forest (another save I have never done before) and agian its going really well, and I'm finally getting back into the FM groove.

I think my main criticism of the game (apart from corners which are frustrating atm) is the level of animations, I just don't feel they are diverse enough, it has got better over the years but I think if the ME continues to be polished up I would love to see a real focus and push on making the visual representation of the ME look more varied.

[jc1]

Ok, i've now been playing around with the game and tactics for around 2 months, starting from scratch each time, tweaking tactics and buying a variety of players and only playing a season each time. I do this while I wait for the February data update and usually the final ME update before I immerse myself totally into a big saved game. Can I now please ask SI, DO NOT CHANGE M.E, IT'S WORKING FINE AND MY TACTICS ARE SPOT ON GREAT. It has taken the usual 8-10 games for the players to get used to the tactics, my strikers are scoring for fun and my defence has let in 2 gaols in 10 games, I'm happy with my lot, the ME all seems good to go, just need new Data update and it'll be 7-8 months of winning league and cups galore.

[Dagenham_Dave]

. Can I now please ask SI, DO NOT CHANGE M.E, IT'S WORKING FINE AND MY TACTICS ARE SPOT ON GREAT.

If your tactics are that good, any changes to the ME will make little difference.

[Svenc]

At the risk of sounding like I'm hating on the good ones from the careers forum, I get very bored reading careers where the managers win absolutely everything every time.

That's because most games are set up from the same fantasy: People start at the bottom, improve their squads, rise to the top, pronto. The names and faces may differ, but the story template save for a few flair additions (only youth players, no foreign signings, etc.) are kind of the same. There's totally nothing wrong with that, after all, that's part of the attraction of the game.

I think it's missing out on a lot of what can make FM unique, though, in parts thanks to the game reflecing on a lot of stuff both on the pitch (match engine) and off the pitch (media, squad management, etc.). Currently I'm into international management again, Germany. Due to the many final and semi chokers during the last international tournaments (finals 2002, semis 2006, finals 2008, semis 2010, semis 2012) there's pub talk as to whether Germany is still nurturing the kind of players of old, or at least getting the balance right: the grittily determined leaders, the guys who'd step up and tackle Pirlo to intimidate him from minute one and show him who's the boss, they're found missing. It's partly fueled by media and former players as well. We're talking Matthäus, Effenberg, Kohler, Jakobs, Sammer, Kahn, Schumacher, that kind of player that likely helped to turn German squads into the "bad guys" of international tournaments during much of the 80s of 90s many a non-German loved to hate (and quite a few German merely tolerated as long as they kept their mouth shut).

All not nearly as skilled and flairful as Özil or Götze, but determined to win no matter the cost. I'm currently in a save where I've thrown out most of the flair players and replaced them with determined, hard working, physical and influencal players and the style that goes along with it and see whether the pub talk is right or not. You can't miss out on Müller though, obviously, though luckily he has a bit of both traits to him (without being any kind of smug, that is). SPOILER: So far it doesn't work too well, as obviously, the best players Germany did produce in the last couple of years where of a different kind, which is reflected in the game's DB (I also forgot to alter my reputation accordingly, so all those grim men are facing a manager they consider unworthy of their very manly presence). Still, it's a challenge, and the style imposed onto the squad is showing, as also evident by the fans now starting to complain as recently mixed results met "less than exciting football on display". After a couple lucky wins and having throwing out so many of the starlets out of the squad to the bewilderment of the press and fans alike, I came under pressure as soon as I lost my first match.

There are so many WHAT IF's beyond WHAT IF... I took over my favourite team and lead them to the CL.

As for the statistics of the full fat ME vs the quick sim: It's not that huge of a deal, I guess. The players traits are shining through in either one, and even though the number of passes etc. are far off, the pass completion rate should still reflect if somebody's decent in possession or not. It would impact you the most if you also took a look at a player's statistics when determining to sign (or scout) players, but perhaps not big enough that SI considers it to be a huge deal. Still the quick sim better catch up.

[MrPompey]

After walking a tightrope for months on end in my first season with Pompey (where I was expected to win the league (I was rock bottom after 10 games)) I managed to salvage the season somewhat and get to the playoffs. Naturally the board are still disappointed with me, yet they've offered me a new contract and were delighted when I accepted it. I've not even played the playoff final yet and I'm being offered a new deal. Even if we go up I'll still have let them down pretty badly.

I've raised the incorrect expectation of promotion for season 1 as an issue, its really down to the size of the club and its standing. Anyway had you been managing from the start instead of Guy and go to the play-offs then the club would be happy. In this instance I think its down to an understanding Chairman. For example, do you think in real life Moyes will be sacked if he doesn't finish top 4?

I started with Pompey and:

Season 1 - Won league 2 (I also started very poorly and just gradually moved up

Season 2 - Finished 12th League 1

Season 3 - Promoted in 2nd position League 1

Season 4 - Currently just below midway Championship. I was 2nd from bottom at one point losing 6 games in a row

Good luck with the play-offs

[Blueflash]

Ok, i've now been playing around with the game and tactics for around 2 months, starting from scratch each time, tweaking tactics and buying a variety of players and only playing a season each time. I do this while I wait for the February data update and usually the final ME update before I immerse myself totally into a big saved game. Can I now please ask SI, DO NOT CHANGE M.E, IT'S WORKING FINE AND MY TACTICS ARE SPOT ON GREAT. It has taken the usual 8-10 games for the players to get used to the tactics, my strikers are scoring for fun and my defence has let in 2 gaols in 10 games, I'm happy with my lot, the ME all seems good to go, just need new Data update and it'll be 7-8 months of winning league and cups galore.

'Cos you take precedence over the hundreds of other players eagerly anticipating an update.

[WayneRomney]

That last part is nonsense and quite insulting tbh. SI has no competition because noone could compete with them. Theyve never been a team to compete with others - theyve always competed against their own expectations. Their own expectations wont change just because their competitors gave up.

lol why is this insulting?

[HUNT3R]

lol why is this insulting?

Because it implies that because there's no competition, SI don't put much effort into their next version of FM or update/patch. That's very far from the truth.

[jc1]

If your tactics are that good, any changes to the ME will make little difference.

True but I did have to do little tweaks after each update to the ME, that's why I don't really get into a long saved game until final data and ME update, usually in february.

[jc1]

'Cos you take precedence over the hundreds of other players eagerly anticipating an update.

No because I take time and effort to immerse myself in the game fully, working on tactics, defensive/offensive positioning at set pieces etc until I'm happy with the game and my tactics. Far too many on here complain and moan abut the simplest things not working instead of working out what is wrong in their own game and team. Yes there are still a couple of little things need fixed but IMHO this ME is about as good as it looks like getting.

Out of the thousands playing, there is only a small percentage on here complaining and many of those have had their game working better after looking at tactics etc. Instead of moaning take the advise given and work on the game play more.

[PaulC]

Quick update.

Firstly as ever thanks to all those who have provided constructive criticism, as this is invaluable to us and appreciated.

There will be another ME update, probably with 14.3 when the data is updated. So far we have worked on the following:

- Goalie errors. We have identified a few that lingered around and will hope to get any remaining ones zapped for this cycle.

- Headed clearances. We identified issues with trajectory and direction and the fixes are now in test. Affects no of goals just after corners and also own goal count.

- Corners. We are still working on this. Main issue now is there are slightly too many of them at top levels.

- Ball physics. No changes planned for this cycle. There are definitely further improvements to be made but we believe it's in a decent state overall for the time being.

- General. We want to improve the individual play of the very best players slightly and this is a work in progress right now.

There are other bits and pieces too of course.

Cheers,

Paul

[SkinningForumVisitor]

Couldn't that be another 6 weeks yet? Russian window?

[Dagenham_Dave]

Goalie errors. We have identified a few that lingered around and will hope to get any remaining ones zapped for this cycle.

Don't take them all away. Goalie errors are a fun part of the game. Some people reporting there's too many which is fair enough, but I'd hate to think you were doing away with them altogether.

[themadsheep2001]

- Headed clearances. We identified issues with trajectory and direction and the fixes are now in test. Affects no of goals just after corners and also own goal count.

Quite like this one, demonstrates very well how one issue knocks onto the other, and its not just a case of solving something in isolation.

[PaulC]

Don't take them all away. Goalie errors are a fun part of the game. Some people reporting there's too many which is fair enough, but I'd hate to think you were doing away with them altogether.

Only the buggy ones :-)

[BiggusD]

Quick update.

Firstly as ever thanks to all those who have provided constructive criticism, as this is invaluable to us and appreciated.

There will be another ME update, probably with 14.3 when the data is updated. So far we have worked on the following:

- Goalie errors. We have identified a few that lingered around and will hope to get any remaining ones zapped for this cycle.

- Headed clearances. We identified issues with trajectory and direction and the fixes are now in test. Affects no of goals just after corners and also own goal count.

- Corners. We are still working on this. Main issue now is there are slightly too many of them at top levels.

- Ball physics. No changes planned for this cycle. There are definitely further improvements to be made but we believe it's in a decent state overall for the time being.

- General. We want to improve the individual play of the very best players slightly and this is a work in progress right now.

There are other bits and pieces too of course.

Cheers,

Paul

First touch; will it be situation-based (velocity of the ball and speed/direction of player movement) in this cycle? I feel like the First Touch attribute, among others, should be made more "sensitive" so that an increase or decrease in it becomes visible in the 3d ME.

[AndySummers]

I'm looking forward to a new ME update.

Having been away over the Xmas period, am I right in believing there were some alterations made in the last 3 weeks? The 2nd update fixed everything I needed to be fixed and I was enjoying my Roma file, yet having come back to the game after my hiatus and Steam updating something I found an engine that felt completely different. The first touch dynamics seemed off, naturally the headers from corners and players generally just running into each other seemed more frequent. But worse, the sudden goalkeeper oddities. I had not noticed a disposition of these in 1.5 seasons at Roma yet, having started my usual main 'Arsenal' file suddenly:

Friendly one - Szczesny simply runs past a striker coming at him one-on-one.

Friendly two - Fabianski dives over a tame back header, and then does the same in the next game from a long kick that was rolling towards him at no speed. There were a couple of other odd scenarios too.

In one of the friendlies, there were about ten instances where either the GK was robbed in possession, mis-passed it to a defender, or the defender was easily robbed. For both myself and the AI team. Now, I rarely complain about anything and take the anomalies for what they are, but from having a really sturdy ME suddenly it is like the positives are interspersed between anomalies. It has stopped my interest stone dead at the moment.

[Äktsjon Männ]

- General. We want to improve the individual play of the very best players slightly and this is a work in progress right now.

Ugh, that scares me. Last time something like this was announced we ended up with the Super Dribblers in FM13 Hopefully not this time

Thank you for the update, btw.

[Dagenham_Dave]

Steam updating something I found an engine that felt completely different

There was an update recently, but there were no ME changes within it.