[official] FM2009 features announcements - improved modules from FM2008

[KUBI]

Just as an example - the Swiss league

Club balance where to high, transfer money where to high for nearly every club, especially in the Challenge League.

A realistic financial implementation would make the Swiss league way more challenging and better.

As you have to scout for young cheap players, instead of buying some oldies from around Europe.

If that happend to all smaller leagues, the game will become much more interesting to play, when you select a lot of leagues.

[tomtuck01]

These improvements are more important to me than the 3d match engine, I cant wait to get into the game and check them out.

[Chocapik]

will you have a more player interactions like encouraging players to take up citzenship. Also love all of the features that you have told us about so far apart from the female managers because i would never use it but i can see you have it there so yer that is a good feature aswell

That would be very useful.

[toon army 06]

Sign player with option to extend for example.

Buy a player that stays loaned at other club for a year or two. (no i don't think it's the same as if i send him to a feeder club and he can reject that)

More clauses in contracts.

A way to talk to players to try persuade them to come to a league they normally wouldn't join.

That's enough for you? That's just some things there are lots of thins SI could ad but i guess you just want Player X wants Y, you offer Y, player X signs for club Z.

agents involved would be good and telling the chairman a list of players you want and him getting them i would have liked that in also player press confrences when you sign a player or make a new captian ect.

[BRAiNDEAD]

so any news on SCOUTING? i hope it is better then previously...

[tomtuck01]

so any news on SCOUTING? i hope it is better then previously...

I thought it was quite good in FM08 to be honest.

[kezmanjacks]

I agree with earlier post about transfer system and your club not being able to attract high profile players, eg in fm 08 if you got promoted with Hull Giovanni would laugh in your face. Or if im spurs 3 years in Henry would not even consider a contract offer. same idea?

[philkemp]

The updated leagues and competitions - will we have any new leagues we can venture into? There were many threads about which leagues people would like to see added... Can you tell us which ones are in the game, or will we just have to wait - btw, I don't like waiting

[Themistofelis]

some questions :

About the "seeing more things in the transfer market" .

Let's say that i am playing Viking with only the Norwegian league loaded and a new season starts.

Wisla and Steaua are making it to CL , will they buy better players to improve their squad?

The transfer market outside loaded leagues was always dead , specially clubs from medium leagues (Belgium , Austria etc ) are only selling and never buying anything in 07 & 08 , will this change?

Also how important money will be ? for example will a starter in Bayern Munchen move to Qatar for x5 more wage money? Will the chairman still selling players over my head even if the club is filthy rich?

Will the board make clear their long term plans? for example lets say i am playing Torpedo Moskva , will the chairman tell me " i want a team that plays good football & stays in 1st division " or " I have big plans , i want to be a dominant power in Europe after 5 seasons " ?

[OB1UK]

Will there be better negotiations with the other clubs when buying players?

e.g. I make a £10m bid for Bentley and Blackburn come back with £18m. I then re-negotiate to 12m + clauses, Blackburn would then negotiate a little more and so on and so on. Also have a comment from the selling club that says 'this is your last chance, make a suitable offer or we pull the plug entirely' to ensure negotiations don't go on forever.

Also would like that for when we are selling. So many times on FM08 i get an enquiry for one of my players and i ask for the player valuation say £6m for Jenas and every team interested basically dissappear and look elsewhere, when tbh the valuation was pretty fair. We should be able to negotiate the price down or add clauses etc.

I guess i am trying to say that negotiations in FM 08 are too abrupt, whether selling or buying.

[DPG]

Hello, i appreciate a lot of people have been asking questions but...

Is it easier to get rid of those dead weights in the squad, i mean in the last addition i couldn't give them away.

Is it still approach team, agree fee then speak with player. I have always thought that was the only way of doing it but yo hear stories such as 'we have agreed terms with the player, now a fee has to be agreed"

Last one, how are you handling deadline day this time round, im sure i wasn't the only one on the end of my seat the other day.

[woody2goody]

Deadline day made for great entertainment, for sure. I would enjoy league rep being changed, as it would encourage me to manage in more leagues than I would have previously. I agree with the idea of asking a player to go and earn a different nationality and leaving him there until he has done it.

Getting rid of useless squad players MUST be easier. I think so many people here have had players in the Premier League that most of the other teams and all of the Championship teams would have jumped in to sign and they've had to sell them for a couple of hundred K instead of the 2-3 million they are realy worth.

[Ferrari312]

As someone who enjoys his long term games I'd like to hear a bit more about the regens too, what in particular has been fixed, will FaceGen still be an option?

[Themistofelis]

Getting rid of useless squad players MUST be easier.

100% true , if i am transfer listing a player and he is not sold after 2 weeks (receiving 100% of his displayed value) then transfer module is not good enough

[Hamenaglar]

100% true , if i am transfer listing a player and he is not sold after 2 weeks (receiving 100% of his displayed value) then transfer module is not good enough

why?

101010010110

[Scoham]

100% true , if i am transfer listing a player and he is not sold after 2 weeks (receiving 100% of his displayed value) then transfer module is not good enough

That wouldn't be very realistic would it?

[Themistofelis]

why?

101010010110

selling players = transfers

not selling players = no transfers

What you can say about a transfer module that do not make transfers ?

Or how successful can be a transfer module that does not serve the transfer demands of the gamer?

Also AI teams from non active league not bidding for my TLed players ( considering the fact that with small DB there couldn't be full rosters for all teams in European competitions ) means that they will use greys with CA good enough to make them usable and this is the founding stone of :

a) AI cheating

b)Transfer market to go dead

*edit leave "a" behind , topic here is "b"

[Powlay]

Thats idiotic thinking.

Players in real life there is a transfer list, players go on it and clubs dont always recieve bids for them. So because teams may not bid on them within 2 weeks and for his asking value the transfer system in game fails?

The transfer system is not there to serve the demands of the gamer, its there to be realistic. Just because a player gets listed doesnt mean some club has to bid for him.

[Themistofelis]

Thats idiotic thinking.

this wasn't polite

Players in real life there is a transfer list, players go on it and clubs dont always recieve bids for them. So because teams may not bid on them within 2 weeks and for his asking value the transfer system in game fails?

Yes it does , players are a commodity and obey the rules of supply and demand , in previous releases the use of grey players eliminated the demand , how you can build a market without demand ? In real life supply is vastly greater from demand but this is not the case of the game.

The transfer system is not there to serve the demands of the gamer, its there to be realistic. Just because a player gets listed doesnt mean some club has to bid for him.

So the purpose of the game is not to be friendly for the gamer , ok i accept that this is your view ; as i said previously in order to achieve a satisfying level of realism we must have a realistic supply / demand model and this means that even in small databases at least all teams in the continent should start with full rosters so player's ability does matter .

If the devs achieve to make a game that runs as fast as fm07 with small DB while having 100.000 players loaded i promise to post a photo of myself with 5 copies of the game bought and the receipt .

[Blue Lou]

Updated Competitions – Fully updated for the new 2008/09 football season with all the latest league, club and player data, featuring over 5,000 playable clubs from over 50 countries, and around 350,000 players and staff from around the world, drawn fresh from the famous Sports Interactive database.

Hi Miles,

This may cheeky but does that include the African Competitions? The CAF (continental) tournament formats were incorrect in FM 2008. I reported the format changes and some prize money changes to Driss last year and posted in the relevant forums.

Also have the competition histories been fixed? Last year there was a problem with the "African Cup Winners Cup" history.

The African Cup Winners' Cup (real name, CAF Confederation Cup, ID: 131272) in game contains the history of the Confederation Cup(2004-) and the African Cup Winners Cup (1975-2004). They should have been stored under a separate competition because they were different competitions. The confederation cup was a new tournament that was created in place of the CAF Cup and African Cup Winners Cup.

Also, please could you tell me if there any plans to create a quickstart file for South Africa this year?

[Powlay]

this wasn't polite

Yes it does , players are a commodity and obey the rules of supply and demand , in previous releases the use of grey players eliminated the demand , how you can build a market without demand ? In real life supply is vastly greater from demand but this is not the case of the game.

So the purpose of the game is not to be friendly for the gamer , ok i accept that this is your view ; as i said previously in order to achieve a satisfying level of realism we must have a realistic supply / demand model and this means that even in small databases at least all teams in the continent should start with full rosters so player's ability does matter .

If the devs achieve to make a game that runs as fast as fm07 with small DB while having 100.000 players loaded i promise to post a photo of myself with 5 copies of the game bought and the receipt .

Im not polite, i didnt see anything that says anyone had to be polite. I was being honest. I applogise if i offended you but, imho its an idiotic way of thinking.

Simple question, in real life does every player who goes on the transfer list get sold within two weeks?

If the answer is no, then why should it be so in the game.

If you think the answer is yes, please refer to my first comment about your idea. The one that wasnt nice.

[DPG]

I think it is fair to say you should be able to get rid of a reasonable player for free, that is what I finally try if nothing else works and i cant afford to release the player. Then again players are released in real life so i guess those clubs couldn't get rid of the player.

[glamdring]

Board Confidence – Following on from its addition in Football Manager™ 2008, board confidence has been expanded and improved. In addition, the board will now also feedback to you on your squad harmony and the club’s stature in the football world.

I scanned the thread, but didn't have time to read other replies thoroughly so apologies if this has already been mentioned (I didn't see it).

This bit strikes me as being a little strange. Surely it is much more an area for the Assistant Manager to report on squad harmony than the board? The board rarely ever see the squad do they so in most cases they won't really know what is really going on within the squad?

[jayahr]

I scanned the thread, but didn't have time to read other replies thoroughly so apologies if this has already been mentioned (I didn't see it).

This bit strikes me as being a little strange. Surely it is much more an area for the Assistant Manager to report on squad harmony than the board? The board rarely ever see the squad do they so in most cases they won't really know what is really going on within the squad?

Also I wouldn't expect that to have a big influence on the board satisfaction as long as results are fine.

Or does it actually mean the harmony between the team and the manager? If the team keeps on asking the chairman to give the manager the sack, it would of course be a factor. But even then the board won't react as long as results are fine and again, it would after all be the an indication of the team happiness with you which might be oddly placed under the board happiness header.

[Fernando Nano]

I would have liked more if the interaction between the manager and the players would have been improved as opposed to the one with the media, as the media does not make a difference when playing in the lower leagues.

A manager should always speak to their staff and most importantely, the players. I am a little dissapointed about that.

[VMX]

About the improved transfer system:

Question1:

Does this mean we will get more realistic negotiations by the AI?

I mean, this is a typical FM08 scenario:

- They ask you 8M for a player

- You offer 6M + 2M depending on results

- They now as you 8M + 2M depending on results

- etc...

Negotiation was pretty pointless since the AI always had a fixed value they wanted to sell the player for, and they would never conceed anything.

Also, things like:

- They ask for 4M

- You offer 2M

- They ask for 4M again

- You offer 3M

- They now ask for 4.2M

- You offer 3.5M

- They ask for 4.2

- ...

It was REALLY frustrating, you could never reach a intermediate point at, say, 3.5 or 3.7M were you could both agree.

It was always down to giving them what they want now, or giving them what they want in 12/24 months... nothing else.

Has this been changed at all?

Question 2:

Any new options added to the offer and/or contract screens?

For example:

- Play to pay contracts

- Optional contract years depending on results, goals, matches played, etc.

- Having the option to sign a player BUT leaving him on loan in his original club for one or more years, just like Real Madrid have done with Garay this year. This would be a major improvement to sign youngsters with potential, but who are still not good enough for your first team squad or don't yet have the EU citizenship, and you want them to have first team football. It's usually hard to find a club that wants to loan them just after you sign them. It would be great to be able to leave them at their original clubs...

Anything along these lines?

[TakeSomeWork]

I'll assume that if you buy a big name player, like City have, then it will attract others.

Also it would be nice if you could offer a player stupid wages to tempt them, like many clubs do, Newcastle for example.

I totally agree that negotiations at the moment are madness and too rigid.

Hope this is improved in the next version.

[Sandy_Tait]

About the improved transfer system:

Question1:

Does this mean we will get more realistic negotiations by the AI?

...

Negotiation was pretty pointless since the AI always had a fixed value they wanted to sell the player for, and they would never conceed anything.

Also, things like:

- They ask for 4M

- You offer 2M

- They ask for 4M again

- You offer 3M

- They now ask for 4.2M

- You offer 3.5M

- They ask for 4.2

- ...

It was REALLY frustrating, you could never reach a intermediate point at, say, 3.5 or 3.7M were you could both agree.

It was always down to giving them what they want now, or giving them what they want in 12/24 months... nothing else.

Then you're doing it wrong

Unless the price asked is a bargain, I always negotiate. Throwing in percentage of next sale can work wonders, especially with young players. If they're good, you won't sell them and you lose nothing but gain a lot. If they're crap then you'll lose some of their transfer value but - as they're crap - that's unlikely to be a huge amount of money.

It's not so foolproof outside of the top flight but I've never been at a club that hasn't managed to make a ****load of profit season after season with some careful buying and selling.

I don't bother trying to muck around with fees after games/caps/goals. It might work too but I can't comment. Using the percentage of next sale option, however, can shave up to 40% off the demanded price.

But, just like in real life, clubs won't always be prepared to sell a player for anything less than their stated price tag - look at the Berbatov and Arshavin sagas at Spurs over the summer, for example. Spurs wouldn't settle for anything less than £30m for Berbatov and it took until the final day for that to go through; Zenit absolutely refused to budge from their £24m price tag for Arshavin and in the end Spurs had to look elsewhere.

[SuperMeppen]

Then you're doing it wrong

Unless the price asked is a bargain, I always negotiate. Throwing in percentage of next sale can work wonders, especially with young players. If they're good, you won't sell them and you lose nothing but gain a lot. If they're crap then you'll lose some of their transfer value but - as they're crap - that's unlikely to be a huge amount of money.

It's not so foolproof outside of the top flight but I've never been at a club that hasn't managed to make a ****load of profit season after season with some careful buying and selling.

I don't bother trying to muck around with fees after games/caps/goals. It might work too but I can't comment. Using the percentage of next sale option, however, can shave up to 40% off the demanded price.

But, just like in real life, clubs won't always be prepared to sell a player for anything less than their stated price tag - look at the Berbatov and Arshavin sagas at Spurs over the summer, for example. Spurs wouldn't settle for anything less than £30m for Berbatov and it took until the final day for that to go through; Zenit absolutely refused to budge from their £24m price tag for Arshavin and in the end Spurs had to look elsewhere.

You've completely missed the point he was making, which was that the negotiating in his example was completely irrational - why did the price go up? There's no logic to that. And the fact that there wasn't any middle-ground - it was the asking-price or nothing. And having to give-away potential resale value isn't a good solution to the problem.

[VMX]

Exactly what SuperMeppen said.

It's always down to giving them the amount they want, only that you can rip it appart in different payments, and some of those could be variable.

What I'm saying is we need actual negotiations, we need the AI to be able to (sometimes) accept a deal for less money than what they initially asked, if they find that no team is offering that amount of money. THAT is called negotiation. Otherwise it's only "dividing" a payment.

Right now there's ALWAYS a fixed price, from the start to the beginning of the negotiations, which sometimes even goes up!

And when the club actually declares a player transfer listed, they just drop the asking price to a lower value, but still, they're inflexible in that value!!

If I transfer list a player it's because I have the intention to sell him and get some money, so even if I change his price from 8M to 4M, I'd probably end up accepting a 3.5M deal if I realize that's the higher offer I can get... or even a much lower offer if I REALLY want to get rid of him and his salary and there's only one team insterested! It's plain absurd sometimes that you can't sign a player because they ask for 2.5M but your transfer budget if 'only' of 2.4M... so they constantly reject, despite you're the only bidder!!!

I'm sure most people here know what I'm talking about... sometimes there's no feeling of true "negotiation" at all.

[profii]

regarding transfers - if you take for example that mark hughes was reported to be on a golf course all deadline day - i think it would realistic to say as a manager to first send scouts out to find the ideal player you need then forward the recommendation to the board who then contact the other club for the best deal they can do. It seems these days that the actual managers dont have a lot to do with the transfers these days, so it would be interesting to reflect that in game! obviously too late for 09 but it's just an idea to note.

[Guest Vilosophe]

Regarding transfer System:

1) i hope that the clubs that want a player doesn't make all the same bid: if they are very interested in the player they must try to overcome the other's bid.

2) Negotiation: The AI doesn't negotiate their bid about your player. Never. They ask for the price ora make a first bid (that indeed a question itsef): you set the price and the or accept or decline it. No Negotiations. I hope it's change in FM09

3) Mainly in low country, if a club pays a player with a higher amount of money than the limit value of the players in that nations, it's happen often that if the player plays very well, the club sells him for a lower amount than it pay for.

E.g. MTK buys Tizio Caio for 1M€, after 5/6 month, the player's value decrease to the maximum level of the competition: 300m€. Tizio Caio plays very well so many clubs are interested in him and MTK sells him for 600m€: it's seems to me very ridicolous, because the AI must know how it had paid for.

[sergio920]

I would also like to know exactly what about team talks has been improved, and is it actually affecting the way the players play. Most of my talk feedback was Didnt seem to be listening or Nothing significant noted. Even when they seemed motivated they did not really respond on the pitch.

It would also be interesting to see more talk options.

[Amaroq]

Yes it does , players are a commodity and obey the rules of supply and demand , in previous releases the use of grey players eliminated the demand , how you can build a market without demand ? In real life supply is vastly greater from demand but this is not the case of the game.

So the purpose of the game is not to be friendly for the gamer , ok i accept that this is your view ; as i said previously in order to achieve a satisfying level of realism we must have a realistic supply / demand model and this means that even in small databases at least all teams in the continent should start with full rosters so player's ability does matter.

I don't agree with you, Themistofelis.

I'm firmly of the camp that all players who participate in an active league should be real players, not grey.

However, the "Small" database option is pretty explicitly intended for those of us with poor performing computers. When I have a crummy computer, I have no problem reducing the number of players (and therefore, the memory footprint, the number of AI decisions, and the number of contracts) by having "grey" players for teams in inactive leagues. In return, I get somewhat-close-to-reasonable performance.

While you are correct that international "demand" for those players may have changed, so has the international "supply" of players .. making the reduced demand a non-issue.

When I've played a game, small DB, English leagues only active, I have been able to both purchase players from and sell players to inactive (grey) foreign clubs. The clubs seem to operate much as they would with real players: they buy players who they think either belong in their club due to current reputation, current CA, or future PA. And, sometimes, they are wrong.

Its not like the AI makes the conclusion "Well, since I can have a grey player of quality X, I don't need to purchase a real player of quality X." They still buy players. Just not as frequently .. which makes sense, because the purchases that they aren't making are (in theory) the purchases from other inactive leagues.

Yes, its a little bothersome when I meet them in competition that their grey players have 100% Condition and complete immunity to the long-term impact of yellow cards and red cards.

So?

If I want perfect realism, I have to sacrifice performance by accepting a larger DB and more active leagues.

If my computer can't handle perfect realism, I have an option to sacrifice realism for increased performance.

[Ryknow]

Can you allocate what you want to transfers and wages adjustment, instead of it deciding what one you want to take money from?

Either way, I just hope the regens work fine, maybe a cross between Fm07 (too good) and FM08 (fairly bad).

Really looking forward to this.

[Jobnik]

To someone from the SI team:

Can we get an example or two of how the re-written AI of the transfer system will change it?

I mean, a couple of examples of situations from FM 08, that will occur diffrently in FM 09 thanks to the new AI?

Thanks in advance.

[VMX]

Anyone else feels ignored here?

lol

[Ter]

We'll probably go into more details in the blogs that will be coming in the run up to release

[Tim2]

I cant wait for the game, I like the press conferences it sounds like you will be able to do a Mourhinio and say you are the special one!! What speed will the game be at between the highlight clips? Or will the clock be speeded up?

[VMX]

We'll probably go into more details in the blogs that will be coming in the run up to release

Ok thanks. Don't get me wrong, I really apprieciate that you even bother to post regularly in these forums, which is way more than what most gaming companies would ever do.

It's just that other threads (3D match engine, etc.) are getting responses by you guys and this one isn't, which for me is an equally important feature (or even more) than the others.

Looking forward to the upcoming blogs

[JBC]

I like the financial part being reviewed. Hopefully the Prize Money is getting increased per season. I think it was pretty annoying to see the Prize Money always stayed the same in the old FM's, whereas players didn't get cheaper...

[Reds4life]

Hi Team, I was also wondering about the scouting system. I was wondering these are included.

You recieve news that you have a number of scouts watching your players during matches.

Your scout gives you more indepth feedback on the strengths and weaknesses of players and what benefits he might bring to your team also list the negatives as well i.e bring this player in might cause problems with "Player name" as he feels his position is threaten. This is more of a improvement to an existing feature.

After your scout gives a his recommendation, will you have the option of your scout to start the ball rolling by contacting the players agent.

Also after the scout has given his report can you send your assistant manager to see this player himself because i would trust my assistant manager over my scout any day. The benefit from this would be a more indepth report and also the assistant manager could give you feedback to what this play could do for the club if he joined.

Say your scout has found a player will great potential to be the next big thing and after 2 or 3 years of developing and turning out to be either a wonderkid or a world class act, would that scout get a better reputation. Same if he recommended someone who turned out to be a flop.

When you send a scout out and he gets spotted by the press with you be questioned by the press over it.

[wakesta]

Does this mean you have updated Man City finances on FM09 to reflect their real life finances??

[santa19]

Does anyone know whether agents are more involved in the transfer progress? e.g. making agent enquirey's before buying a player to strike a deal with the agent and club.

[Azmodai]

I am going to ask if transfer options when negotiating transfer fees will have an advantage? For example, i've been playing the game since CM2 however not once have I payed for a player in monthly fees or aditional fees etc. since in the end, the money you are spending for that player is subtracted from your total transfer budget anyway. It just makes sense to pay it all up front and be done with it.

Irl most transfers have monthly, yearly installments but in the game i don't think its as viable. Yes your club finances don't plummet immediately but you're still spending all that money from your transfer budget and its just not that much of a tradeoff.

[VMX]

I am going to ask if transfer options when negotiating transfer fees will have an advantage? For example, i've been playing the game since CM2 however not once have I payed for a player in monthly fees or aditional fees etc. since in the end, the money you are spending for that player is subtracted from your total transfer budget anyway. It just makes sense to pay it all up front and be done with it.

Irl most transfers have monthly, yearly installments but in the game i don't think its as viable. Yes your club finances don't plummet immediately but you're still spending all that money from your transfer budget and its just not that much of a tradeoff.

If you pay monthly, you can avoid your club's balance decreasing (if your money income is bigger than the money you have to pay each month). The "health" of your economy is measured by the balance amongst other factors, which means that you want to keep it as high as possible. A low or even red numbers balance (even if it's for a short period of time) can result in your board accepting ridiculous offers for your players, your wage budget being reduced (which will reduce your chances to convince possible signings, etc.). Of course, if you're managing any first level team (ManU, Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool, R. Madrid, Barcelona, Atletico...) you might have never noticed any difference... but for 80% of the clubs in the world, it makes a HUGE difference.

On the other hand, I have to say that if you choose to pay in 24 months time, only HALF of the payment (the part corresponding to this season) will be drawn from your budget, while the other half will be taken from the next season's budget. So this actually allows you to "overspend" money, as a 20M transfer budget can allow you to make a 40M signing if agreed to pay in 24 months.

Hope it helps!

[Dazza]

Does this mean you have updated Man City finances on FM09 to reflect their real life finances??

You mean you want 149 billion to spend so you can walk the league then put the game down lol

[great_save]

Perhaps, It is just me, but I do not feel there is enough diversity in board chairmans and board structure. I think there should be more board room - manager interactions, more initiated by the board. Some clubs should have insane expectations that their club will be the biggest and best in the world.

[CowSimao]

I'm really excited for the new transfer system and more realistic finances.

[wwfan]

Ok thanks. Don't get me wrong, I really apprieciate that you even bother to post regularly in these forums, which is way more than what most gaming companies would ever do.

It's just that other threads (3D match engine, etc.) are getting responses by you guys and this one isn't, which for me is an equally important feature (or even more) than the others.

Looking forward to the upcoming blogs

Paul has traditionally posted stuff about the ME, and even he has directed some posters to wait for the blogs. Those in charge of other modules aren't always so communicative as he is. Rest assured, the blog will answer most of your questions.