Football Managers biggest fault.

[Johnny Bravo]

When people say you're bidding way too much for world class (well known players) when you could get a wonder kid who is just as good if not better. So what?? If the player of the game wants to try and make a starting eleven of well known players who are world class players IRL instead of wonder kids who may/may not make it IRL then that's totally up to them.

The transfer system needs a whole lot of work for it to be realistic in both the selling and buying regard. To the people insinuating that the OP doesn't have a clue what he's doing by trying to get Rafael for 200 million. Who seriously thinks he would have gone through with the transfer if they had accepted that bid? He most probably wanted to buy Rafael and after he kept getting rejected was curious to find out how much It would take for them to accept.

You shouldn't have to bid £150 - £200 million to get some of the world class players in this game. To the people who say they like the transfer system the way it is and it would be too easy if you could buy world class players for cheaper than they are currently then there's an easy solution to make you lot happy as well.

For those who think it would make the transfer system too easy, all you would have to do is bid x amount over what the club finds acceptable.

e.g. Say a club will agree to sell the player for £30 million then you could offer £35/£40 million or more to make it as difficult as you want.

The same could be said for selling players, hopefully Si change it so it's more realistic where you can finally get decent bids for most of your players. (transfer listed or not). Again, For those who would find that too easy then you could just sell your players as low priced as you want to make the game more difficult for yourselves.

Football manager does a lot of things well but the transfer system is not one of them..

[HUNT3R]

In post #5, I asked who the OP was managing. Turns out it was Arsenal. It didn't occur to you that Man Utd just don't want to sell to you, toby?

[Cougar2010]

Saw someone ask who i was managing, it's Arsenal. Does who im managing have any relevance when talking about figures of even £40m+ for Rafael, no.

For the record, i didnt go ahead with the deal, it was a case of 'lets see how much it will take until its gets aceepted'. obviously it was £200m again.

I got Gino Peruzzi for £22m instead.

It does make a difference.

Man Utd are less likely to want to sell to a league rival than they are to Spanish/Italian/French/German club so the price quoted to a Prem club will always be slightly inflated compared to a foreign bidder.

[thomit]

Playing as Arsenal, trying to buy Lucas from Liverpool. They wanted €49M for him. No deal. 2 weeks later he was sold to Real Madrid (I think it was) for €30M and something. Proof that AI clubs get better deals? No; proof that Liverpool really really hate the idea of selling such a valuable player to a rival. Lucas was obviously on his way out for whatever reason, but they still put a ridiculous price on his head to a league rival. Real life: They didn't accept a £40M Arsenal bid for Suarez; I think they might have considered a £40M bid from RM at that time. Maybe less if Suarez himself was very very keen on that idea and wanted to force his way out.

Just for the record: I wouldn't have bought Lucas even for €30M+ something. €20-25M, then we're talking. In the end I got Matuidi from PSG instead at a bargain price (less than €5M), and he's on the same quality level or thereabouts.

[scott MUFC]

£40m for Rafeal?

Raeal madrid offered me that and told them to go away..

and in my case

Arsenal got £11.5m accepted for Montoya at Barca (wasn't letting them have him...) I was forced to offer £12.5m as Man Utd

both champions league, and both Premier league.

although Arsenal are mid table.

[x42bn6]

I still don't know how you can defend the bids going to £200m, even to a rival. For half that amount, you could replace Rafael, nab a few extra midfielders, and have a much stronger squad overall.

The moment there was a hint that the bids were closing in on world-record bids, Manchester United would, in reality, bite. They'd never let it get to £200m because there is always the risk that the potential buyer will lose their appetite to negotiate. Rafael is replaceable, and not at Bale/Ronaldo prices, so at a reasonable price (I've said £50m above, give or take), factoring in the benefits of selling Rafael and improving the squad, Manchester United would sell. Maybe tag on an extra £10m or so because it's a rival. But this is still miles off £200m.

[thomit]

I would like the game to force an approval from the board with any bid the manager initiates. So that they can question the manager's sanity whenever he bids £50M for a mediocre right back. Not to mention £200M. The boards (or chairmen) @ ManC, Chelsea, Real Madrid, Barcelona, Monaco and PSG would perhaps not mind; the rest would.

[toby14]

"How do you know it's not relevant? You're a domestic rival"

"It didn't occur to you that Man Utd just don't want to sell to you, toby?"

You guys are seriously missing the point.

I'm obviously aware that clubs would HUGELY prefer to sell to a non-division rival. i thought that would have gone without saying.

How can you defend Man Utd not accepting a bid for Rafael for £40m? £50m? £100m? £200m?

They would sell Rafael in a heartbeat to ANYONE for £30m. And if you disagree with that statement, just wow. There is no point in having a discussion as its pointless.

[x42bn6]

Maybe a feature that has the board step in a stop managers making such massive bids would have some merit.

It would just be a band-aid. The real fix is for the AI to recognise when it is getting a completely brilliant deal, like £50-60m for Rafael, or a bid that is greater than the entire value of the league it is in, and accept it.

[themadsheep2001]

It would just be a band-aid. The real fix is for the AI to recognise when it is getting a completely brilliant deal, like £50-60m for Rafael, or a bid that is greater than the entire value of the league it is in, and accept it.

It's more than a band aid. If you tried to spend £150m on Rafael, your board would block you in real life. the same should happen in game too.

[x42bn6]

It's more than a band aid. If you tried to spend £150m on Rafael, your board would block you in real life. the same should happen in game too.

It fails to address the root cause that you shouldn't need to spend that much to get him (or indeed, not get him). The root cause is the most important thing here - if the AI sees a great deal, it should take it. The rejection is the really weird issue here, not that you can bid that much money (heck, PSG could probably afford it, and oil-rich clubs outside of UEFA (i.e. not restricted by FFP) probably could one day, too).

Having a board that can defensively look after itself is just a bonus, but inevitably a band-aid, because it just reduces the figure for rejection (from £150m to £70m for Rafael or something).

£60m for Rafeal is not a good deal for a club like Man Utd, the player is one of the best in his position in game in both current & potential ability so no matter how much money they have accepting the bid will only weaken them in that position.

They also do not need the money in the immediate or short-term due to massive commercial revenue streams so unless the player expressing an interest to leave there is no pressure on the club to accept any offer that is tables, failure to qualify for the Champions League for a couple of seasons could necessitate selling players to make ends meet however in this scenario the player may well be already pushing for a move which

Rafael is expendable for that price, no problem. It's £60m you're talking about - that's not a rational figure. We've been linked with Coleman in reality - while I think it's a downgrade, any other cash left over can be better-spent in other areas in the squad, like central midfield, central midfield and central midfield.

If you offered the Glazers £60m for an expendable asset, they would take it.

[Äktsjon Männ]

They sold Cristiano Ronaldo for £80m so of course Rafael for £60m is a no brainer. Hell, I'm sure he'd be gone if someone offered £30m. I like Rafael, but it's not like we're talking about some global superstar here - he's an injury prone and a bit erratic full back who can't get into his national team.

I get the principle of not for sale that the AI pushes and at certain times it absolutely makes sense (like late in the transfer window or with a player considered to be a wonderkid), but I do think there should be a bit more rational approach to very lucrative deals for replaceable players. £60m would buy you a pick from pretty much every Man Utd player in reality if you timed it right. Let alone £150m.

[x42bn6]

I'd really like a system where the AI not only evaluated each bid against the value they place on the player but also evaluates the chances of finding an adequate replacement & the cost that would entail or maybe even constantly having a replacement identified for each & every player in their squad should a bid come in, the realist in me accepts that such a system could place the hardware capable of processing the game in an acceptable time beyond the reach of many people.

Nah, no club actually does that. No club thinks about replacing their squad all the time - at some point, you have to stop thinking about the future and think about the present. You only need to start thinking about replacements when there is a good chance they are going to leave.

I don't think the processing required is that onerous. FM already has a feature where clubs can scout for players and put them on an shortlist, and the reality is that this feature will be along these lines, except it will need to evaluate the contract and standing with his current club (trivial by today's hardware).

You also don't have to do it per bid - it's per player. If Arsenal bid for one of your players, you don't need to go ahead and scout a replacement again if Liverpool bid for the same player. That knowledge is already there.

Besides, it will be a very good thing if clubs were capable of making informed decisions about transfers, and a big step in the right direction towards realism.

They sold Cristiano Ronaldo for £80m so of course Rafael for £60m is a no brainer. Hell, I'm sure he'd be gone if someone offered £30m. I like Rafael, but it's not like we're talking about some global superstar here - he's an injury prone and a bit erratic full back who can't get into his national team.

I get the principle of not for sale that the AI pushes and at certain times it absolutely makes sense (like late in the transfer window or with a player considered to be a wonderkid), but I do think there should be a bit more rational approach to very lucrative deals for replaceable players. £60m would buy you a pick from pretty much every Man Utd player in reality if you timed it right. Let alone £150m.

I think £30m is too low, certainly by today's transfer standards... We'd need to pay over £20m for his replacement, for starters, which makes £30m look rather lame. If we had the footballing (insert Moyes joke here) and financial capability of Spurs, say, £30m might be worth considering.

[toby14]

Äktsjon Männ Just hit the nail on the head. You simply can't argue with that..

[Gosu]

How did you get 200m? and how many seasons..

[x42bn6]

That's the thing, not everyone playing FM is using today's hardware so whatever system is used it has to be functional for a large enough proportion of the consumer base to make commercial sense.

I have no doubt that a system that you & I would clearly both like to see is technically possible, the question for people much higher up the food chain than I is whether the game would still be playable for the vast majority of our paying customers & also whether it would be an enjoyable experience, after all the user will also have to deal with an AI board & at the moment we get much more freedom than we probably should when compared to real life.

I wouldn't underestimate the capabilities of the hardware you are talking about. This stuff should be too easy for even yesterday's hardware. You're talking evaluating several thousand players once per transfer window, with a "fitness function" that should take less than a millisecond per player. Throw in parallelism and you have yourself a fairly trivial piece of processing. Heck, a lot of this processing might already be done if the manager has already scouted replacements (the scout reports show many of the details already - it's about translating it into a single number).

[x42bn6]

If the evaluation is only being done once per transfer window then the result will need to be stored in memory should the initial approach is rejected which pushes the requirements beyond pure processing horsepower, personally I do not think that a single evaluation would be a wise idea as the overall picture could be very different on August 28th compared to when the first approach was made & rejected on July 5th, such a system could lead to all manner of strange decisions in the latter part of a transfer window & of course there are some leagues that have a very long transfer window.

I don't see why the picture should change drastically, unless a player signs a new contract or hands in a transfer request. The thing that determines value is ability, squad standing and financial factors, and none of these necessarily change drastically over a month, and for such events, you can use callback mechanisms. The players to be evaluated is unlikely to change drastically, as well - players similar to Rafael will still be similar to Rafael if you wait for a month.

Besides, like I said, this is trivial processing, and since the result is just a number (8 bytes for argument's sake), a few thousand numbers, you're talking kilobytes of memory at most. Kilobytes. You may as well keep that in memory and avoid persistence. And you could get away with processing it every day if you wanted to.

[thomit]

That's the thing, not everyone playing FM is using today's hardware or software so whatever system is used it has to be functional for a large enough proportion of the consumer base to make commercial sense.

I have no doubt that a system that you & I would clearly both like to see is technically possible, the question for people much higher up the food chain than I is whether the game would still be playable for the vast majority of our paying customers & also whether it would be an enjoyable experience, after all the user will also have to deal with an AI board & at the moment we get much more freedom than we probably should when compared to real life.

That's the key issue. Human managers have too much freedom to spend the club's money (eg all the transfer kitty on 1 player with a bid 3-4 times his value), and too much freedom to reject bids that the board would probably say was a too-good-to-refuse bid. The boards and chairmen and managing directors need to have a much stronger say in the matter, and more power (or be more willing) to overrule the manager. The manager is not in charge of the whole club; his bosses are the owner(s), the chairman, and the board.

As a manager, you should not have the exclusive power to refuse ridiculously overpriced bids, nor should you have the exclusive power to make them.

[forameuss]

That's the key issue. Human managers have too much freedom to spend the club's money (eg all the transfer kitty on 1 player with a bid 3-4 times his value), and too much freedom to reject bids that the board would probably say was a too-good-to-refuse bid. The boards and chairmen and managing directors need to have a much stronger say in the matter, and more power (or be more willing) to overrule the manager. The manager is not in charge of the whole club; his bosses are the owner(s), the chairman, and the board.

As a manager, you should not have the exclusive power to refuse ridiculously overpriced bids, nor should you have the exclusive power to make them.

But then does that take too much power away given that this is a game where you play a football manager? That's the dilemma.

[ANDEHLSON]

That's the key issue. Human managers have too much freedom to spend the club's money (eg all the transfer kitty on 1 player with a bid 3-4 times his value), and too much freedom to reject bids that the board would probably say was a too-good-to-refuse bid. The boards and chairmen and managing directors need to have a much stronger say in the matter, and more power (or be more willing) to overrule the manager. The manager is not in charge of the whole club; his bosses are the owner(s), the chairman, and the board.

As a manager, you should not have the exclusive power to refuse ridiculously overpriced bids, nor should you have the exclusive power to make them.

Considering the values of players in certain leagues, the AI's stupid bids and a lot of other things... Please no. Never let it happen. Ever.

Also the English league in FM really has some insanely overpriced players (it's not that it's impossible to get some good deals but there are plenty of absurd ones). It's odd if you compare to Barça who basically sell anyone other than Messi for 15-20m... Something went wrong there.

[milnerpoint]

Considering the values of players in certain leagues, the AI's stupid bids and a lot of other things... Please no. Never let it happen. Ever.

Also the English league in FM really has some insanely overpriced players (it's not that it's impossible to get some good deals but there are plenty of absurd ones). It's odd if you compare to Barça who basically sell anyone other than Messi for 15-20m... Something went wrong there.

Its just follows real life. Ashley Young moved for £20M to Man Utd, Andy Carol for £35M, Jordan Henderson for the same as Young. Christ Zaha moved for £15M. English clubs always massively overpay for English players, because there are so few good ones about.

What FM rarely gets right is the technical quality of the English players, so they always look better in FM than they are in reality.

[ANDEHLSON]

It happens with foreigners too though. English clubs reject bids for their mediocre foreign players too. But sometimes I end up having more trouble buying a mediocre player than a good one that I buy there for 5-15m. I think the rotation players are a bit overpriced. Simple as that. (not really about their important players even though it really should have a limit to how high of an offer they can reject just like that)

But that's hardly a major concern for me. I'm more concerned with the AI's evaluation of players in smaller leagues and youngsters vs established players.

But I'd love to know how the clubs ask for this in England in Spain it's kind of the opposite specially with Barça. Thank god the AI is still so stupid that it doesn't buy Pique and Fabregas for those prices...

[martinji]

That's the key issue. Human managers have too much freedom to spend the club's money (eg all the transfer kitty on 1 player with a bid 3-4 times his value), and too much freedom to reject bids that the board would probably say was a too-good-to-refuse bid. The boards and chairmen and managing directors need to have a much stronger say in the matter, and more power (or be more willing) to overrule the manager. The manager is not in charge of the whole club; his bosses are the owner(s), the chairman, and the board.

As a manager, you should not have the exclusive power to refuse ridiculously overpriced bids, nor should you have the exclusive power to make them.

I agree completely. Though (to counter some of the worries about poor AI decision making) I don't think the board should be quite as stringent as they would be IRL. I just think the board should step in to curb the most obvious unrealisms. Both to prevent unrealistic bids being made, and to force you to accept very large bids for players when you are a small club. This "Active board?" could always be made an in-game setting for those that want to retain the option to be a Fergie-style autocrat.

[thomit]

I agree completely. Though (to counter some of the worries about poor AI decision making) I don't think the board should be quite as stringent as they would be IRL. I just think the board should step in to curb the most obvious unrealisms. Both to prevent unrealistic bids being made, and to force you to accept very large bids for players when you are a small club. This "Active board?" could always be made an in-game setting for those that want to retain the option to be a Fergie-style autocrat.

When it comes down to realism vs fiction, or simulation vs gamey, I'm always on the realism/simulation side. But I'm aware that FM needs to keep a balance. A choice between "more simulation or more gamey" within the game itself seems to me the way to go. A tick-off box where you could choose a more "active board" sounds like a good idea. The key would be that the board AI was good enough. For example, it (the board AI) should know the difference between these two scenarios: ManU's board wouldn't meddle to much if the manager makes a €10M bid for a player in Serie B that's quoted as a €1M value player. The board would tend to trust the manager that the player in question was worth the money. Age and potential and all that sort of thing. However, ManU's board would probably have objections to a €100M bid for a Cardiff player quoted at €10M value. They would ask the manager some tough questions in that case. A bid of that magnitude, even at a rich club like ManU, would need to get a special "screening" within the board, resulting in either a yay or a nay. Even if the player in question indeed had a value of €100M (!), and even if the total transfer kitty could handle that comfortably, I think any club's board would ask some questions about the necessity of spending that amount of money on 1 player.

And so on. If the board's AI could be made good enough to distinguish properly between different circumstances, the values of players, clubs, leagues and nations in relation to one another and so forth, then I'm all for something like that. But given the status of the current club managing AI, long term AI in particular, I think it will be a long wait.

[ggwood]

I'd really like a system where the AI not only evaluated each bid against the value they place on the player but also evaluates the chances of finding an adequate replacement & the cost that would entail or maybe even constantly having a replacement identified for each & every player in their squad should a bid come in, the realist in me accepts that such a system could place the hardware capable of processing the game in an acceptable time beyond the reach of many people.

Sometimes making a problem bigger can help. Mostly this is a problem for top, top teams. We're talking £60m transfers. So just have one list of top, top players would could transfer, for each position. Let's say the user makes a bid for PSG's right back. There is a list of right backs, the game checks that list to see if someone at/near that quality is available, and at what price. Perhaps each player has a "desired club reputation", so the game has to check that the player is willing to sign for PSG. Last, check if there is a rivalry between the club for which the perspective replacement plays and PSG.

Upon reflection, why not have such a list, but only of players near the rep of the team(s) the user(s) is(are) managing? Say I'm playing in league 2. One list of, say, available right backs near league 2 quality - who would be scoutable/signable by typical league 2 teams (thus no one outside UK/Ireland I would assume - I'm no expert).

Maybe require at a minimum two such replacements.

User may be able to "cheese" the system by transfer listing players, thus getting them onto the list, then choosing not to sell them - thus exclude user's own players.

[arseneknowsforsure]

If you spending £200m on a single player several times you are doing something wrong IMO.

Transfers start with scouting and identifying realistic targets, if this part is done right there is no way you should be spending £200m and that has been proven in several threads this last year.

That`s not the point he`s making! IF SOMEONE PUT A 195 MILLION POUND BID FOR RAFAEL IT WOULD BE ACCEPTED IRL. Thats his point

[Cougar2010]

That`s not the point he`s making! IF SOMEONE PUT A 195 MILLION POUND BID FOR RAFAEL IT WOULD BE ACCEPTED IRL. Thats his point

and one of the points I made was NO ONE WOULD MAKE A BID OF £195m for Rafael!

[Wonky]

and one of the points I made was NO ONE WOULD MAKE A BID OF £195m for Rafael!

That's irrelevant. Football Manager is full of 'what if's.

[milnerpoint]

So its irrelevant that its unrealistic for the bid to be made, but its relevant that the unrealistic bid is rejected.

[x42bn6]

and one of the points I made was NO ONE WOULD MAKE A BID OF £195m for Rafael!

Two wrongs don't make a right, though. There is always going to be area in which a bid is perfectly reasonable from the buyer's point of view (both manager and board), but the bid is still ridiculously good from the seller's point of view (imagine a good bid for a promising youngster at a cash-strapped lower-league side). So just preventing "large bids" (relative to quality) will never be enough.

Many bids in the past have been obscene and would be rejected in hindsight - for example, £7m for a not-so-young player with one season of professional football under his belt, and £35m for a donkey. I personally don't like the idea that these bids should be restricted, and even though the magnitude isn't as great as £195m, I'd argue that's somewhat-proportional given their ability and future value. If you are a rich side, and you as a manager have influence over finances (i.e. Sir Alex), you should be able to shoot yourself in the foot if you really wanted to.

[Cougar2010]

That's irrelevant. Football Manager is full of 'what if's.

Its not irrelevant at all.

You can't expect SI to waste resources on coding for extreme situations that are of a users creation and ones that 99.9% of users will never encounter.

They have already bowed to a section of the userbase several years ago that insisted that AI clubs shouldn't be able to say no to a human users bid and now its looking like they are going to have to spend resources stopping human users making these extreme bids.

[milnerpoint]

Its not irrelevant at all.

You can't expect SI to waste resources on coding for extreme situations that are of a users creation and ones that 99.9% of users will never encounter.

They have already bowed to a section of the userbase several years ago that insisted that AI clubs shouldn't be able to say no to a human users bid and now its looking like they are going to have to spend resources stopping human users making these extreme bids.

Exactly, we got to this point because the user based moaned, now its still not happy because SI have implemented what it wanted in the first place.

[x42bn6]

Its not irrelevant at all.

You can't expect SI to waste resources on coding for extreme situations that are of a users creation and ones that 99.9% of users will never encounter.

They have already bowed to a section of the userbase several years ago that insisted that AI clubs shouldn't be able to say no to a human users bid and now its looking like they are going to have to spend resources stopping human users making these extreme bids.

They don't have to focus on stopping extreme bids. They should instead focus their efforts on making the AI such that it accepts these ridiculous bids (because that's what most humans would have done - and Manchester United would never have let the bids get as high as that for Rafael).

This would improve the AI in terms of transfers, since it would be able to consider the context a lot better.

Besides, it's not outlandish that neither implementation of the transfer issue is valid. The AI rejecting the bids flat-out could be wrong, and the AI negotiating to £195m could also be wrong. There is a happy medium in-between that requires the AI to mimic how a human would negotiate, and perhaps end up with a figure in the £50m region (which is how I personally would see a Rafael transfer pan out in reality).

[YKW]

Its not irrelevant at all.

You can't expect SI to waste resources on coding for extreme situations that are of a users creation and ones that 99.9% of users will never encounter.

They have already bowed to a section of the userbase several years ago that insisted that AI clubs shouldn't be able to say no to a human users bid and now its looking like they are going to have to spend resources stopping human users making these extreme bids.

I can't agree with you here Cougar, I think it is very irrelevant. There are two failings here, one being that the human manager wants/is able to make the unrealistic bid, and the other being that the AI responds unrealistically by rejecting that same bid. If your argument is that the AI should accept a £200 million bid then it is irrelevant whether the bid should or shouldn't be made because the question is "If the AI receives a "£200 million pound bid should it accept?" To which the answer is almost always yes. It doesn't matter one single bit whether the player is worth it or whether the bid should be made. Suppose I asked you "If John offered Steve £100 for his pack of M&Ms, would he accept?" would you center your response around the fact that £100 pounds was a ridiculous offer for a pack of M&Ms? I don't think it would, because it is totally irrelevant to the point.

Your secondary argument that it isn't worth the time to improve this area in detail is a decent one though, although I think that improvements to scouting along the lines of making things much less certain would have positive knock-on effects on situations like this one.