Football Manager Early Access Beta *Official* Feedback Thread - 18.0.3

[Per Annum]

Yeah my game froze and crashed when I alt-tabbed whilst on holiday. I thought I'd read it was all borderless window now so was a bit disappointed. Nothing to upload for a bug report as I had to crtl+alt+del and don't know how to get crash dumps from there.

[Per Annum]

Upload to youtube in replays - Immersion breaking and as I am never ever going to do it would be nice to have the tick-box option in preferences to remove the button from replays.

[velvetsky]

Only had one crash so far - that was when I in a pre match press conference so I seem to be lucky so far.

 

ENjoying the game - however Have yet to see any point to the pre match meeting - as my team never seem interested in what I say.

 

THe UI is sluggish I also which they wouldnt faff with things for the sake of faffing with it - you can improve things without changing too much but that has been covered.

 

All in all I have enjoyed the beta so far But i look forward to the bugs being fixed

[ollytasha]

Well for what it's worth my views are that the game feels great at the moment. Few minor niggles as I'm not keen on the skin, but thats something that can be fixed on the release.

 

[Kingstontom88]

Need to get used to the UI, especially for matches. Can't say the stadiums are very impressive but I see what SI have tried to do with cut-scenes.etc it does bring more immersion to the matchday.

Looks OK so far, hopefully dynamics proved to be a good feature, I'm yet to see a benefit or blow from it yet. The medical centre is a very good addition, I've already had to tweak some players' training to prevent possible injuries.

The scouting side of things - I need to get my head around it, especially the packages - I'm assuming you purchase a package, it gives you a bank of players and these are players you can look at in greater depth with your scouts? Seems a good feature.

Finding the tactics page a bid fiddly and I can't seem to see any difference between choosing 'personalised' on individual player positions - the options seem the same regardless of pre-set or personalised and there are still hard coded moves within roles - I may be misinterpreting this feature.

Overall, seems good so far.

[haffaz77]

First of all, i love the Beta so far . But imo Crosses need to be worked on ... 90% of crosses are ending as a Corner cuz the goalkeeper won't simply pick up the ball on the short corner. Or he grabs it .  Even Players with high crossing attributes are crossing the ball mostly like that. Kind of forces me to not play with IF or wingers just to not see that too often. But that cant be the solution, right ?  

Example : 

 

Best Example.mkv

Edited October 30, 2017 by haffaz77
Added a video as example

[Roncatto99]

PROs:-

Love the tactical analysis. Really like how your weak/strong areas can change a lot with player position and player quality. 25yrs of playing this, I feel I'm pretty adept at tactics, but nice to see you can have weaknesses in your own game.

The 3D engine looks nice.

CONs:-

Buttons and menus for buttons and menus sake. Searching for a player, why do i need to go to another place to put in what I want, to then go back to the players its found.

I know mentioned a 1000 times, but scouting reports not arriving into your inbox is just stupid.

Not sure if this is a bug, will have to test more, when attacking corners, your players all stand in and around the penalty spot, corner comes in, no one moves, cleared?

The game is laggy as sin, but, I see the devs have already been made aware.

Injuries seem a little strong, but small sample size atm.

 

Overall, game does look great and the match engine has a lot of potential, so much information to take in (not sure if good or bad yet), but the lagginess and clicking extra buttons and menus is a bit tiresome.

But hey, its a beta, thats what we are all here to do. Test it out, get things fixed.

 

Edited October 30, 2017 by Roncatto99

[Per Annum]

1 minute ago, Roncatto99 said:

 

I know mentioned a 1000 times, but scouting reports not arriving into your inbox is just stupid.

There's plenty to criticise in FM18, but in the preferences tab of the scouting centre you can make the reports arrive in your inbox daily!

[ak71]

21 hours ago, ak71 said:

Hi, SI. 

Wish to check. 

Is there any possibility that the photographer and camera-man will be able to move in FM2018 when the game is launch.

Currently it is immovable. However, I remembered, in one of the FM, the photographer and camera-man are able to move to follow the action. 

Personally, to me, a movable photographer and camera-man will add realism to the match experience. 

Thank you. 

Any response or confirmation from SI will be appreciative..?

Thank you.

[Neil Dejyothin]

7 minutes ago, ak71 said:

Any response or confirmation from SI will be appreciative..?

Thank you.

They will remain static in FM 2018, but it's certainly an improvement we'd like to make in a future version.

[Neil Dejyothin]

15 hours ago, Carmi88 said:

small issue with the 2D display, the ball is always spinning, even when in place for set pieces and now i've noticed it i know its going to bug me every game

Thanks for raising this, it will be fixed for release.

[Ji-Sung Park]

Is it just me or is Neil D a right proper lad within SI?

[kandersson]

51 minutes ago, Per Annum said:

There's plenty to criticise in FM18, but in the preferences tab of the scouting centre you can make the reports arrive in your inbox daily!

But I think they still arrive via scouting meeting together with other reports? Is there a way to have single reports on a single news in my inbox (i.e. the way it was until FM17) ???

[Spurs08]

11 hours ago, sergif said:

Why not? Can't believe that I am the only one interested.

After 20 years of work, immersion of the game is awesome. It's fantastic how player movements are real. Face packs, logo packs, kit packs and every  community work, impressive.

But I need real stadiums. Every one is unique and is part of football history. How can we forget it?

I understand SI don't haves licences (EA sports have it) so give me an editor or I give up, really disappponted.

 

 

 

Because it would be a very complicated, expensive and time-consuming feature, which only a tiny minority of players would use since SI couldn't list the stadiums on the Steam Workshop or anything. It doesn't make any business sense.

[ak71]

36 minutes ago, Neil Dejyothin said:

They will remain static in FM 2018, but it's certainly an improvement we'd like to make in a future version.

Thanks for the response Neil.  Can't say how much i'm disappointed with it but looking forward to the future.  

[Tony Wright 747]

12 hours ago, sergif said:

Why not? Can't believe that I am the only one interested.

After 20 years of work, immersion of the game is awesome. It's fantastic how player movements are real. Face packs, logo packs, kit packs and every  community work, impressive.

But I need real stadiums. Every one is unique and is part of football history. How can we forget it?

I understand SI don't haves licences (EA sports have it) so give me an editor or I give up, really disappponted.

 

 

 

The more stadiums I see in this game the more they annoy me.  If you are a graphic artist with a brief to design a football stadium surely you would go and have a look at some, or at least photos of some before you start to draw.  I have travelled the world watching football since 1957 and I have never seen stadiums that look like some of the ones in this game.  It has nothing to do with licences, we know that SI can't use real stadiums but that shouldn't stop them using realistic ones.  too late for FM18 I know but please SI look at this for FM19

Edited October 30, 2017 by Tony Wright 747
text missing

[Deisler26]

I have to say that an underrated aspect of the new additions is the part where if you delegate your Ass Man to sort out your OI's automatically, it will change them on the fly during the game. What an excellent move!

[roykela]

When doing teamtalks, pre-match, half-time and post-match, does it matter whether you click "End team talk" or not?


I've clicked it before continuing and i have continued without clicking it, after doing my talks.
I haven't noticed any difference. If that is the case, that it doesn't make a difference whether you click it or not, why is it there?
If it does make a difference. What is it?

[Dalglish]

Have to say, after first impressions on Friday - FM18 is now beginning to grow on me.  I think the medical centre is a great addition and the match day cut scenes add a nice bit of realism. I'm also enjoying the learning process re scouting and the tactics area. 

There are a quite a few negatives, but nothing major - and certainly nothing that can't be ironed out before release date. The things that have bothered me most are more cosmetic, but nonetheless quite irritating:

• Stadiums: the larger ones look okay, but some of the small ones look like they've been designed by someone who has never been to a football ground (closed cinema style doors on exits and sash windowed executive boxes are incredibly unrealistic).
   
• Matchday sounds: Played a friendly in front of about 500 fans, but is sounded like a championship deciding Old Firm game. I think we need different sounds to fit the size of stadia.
   
• Tweets: incredibly predictable. Like FM17, always in three's, and even if you win 5-0, one liked the game, one hated it and one was undecided. It was really annoying in FM17, I can't believe no more variants have been added to this feature.
   
• Finally CAPS: Not my cup of tea - gives the game a bit of a 90's feel

TBH I never expect perfection from the beta, but I've always been satisfied a couple of patches in. I'm sure I'll feel the same with FM18.

 

[Guest El Payaso]

8 hours ago, Svenc said:

 

Whoever upvoted this doesn't have a clue how the game works and will never get an understanding of his results.

 

@ElPayaso Your assessment about wide players is sweet Blur music in my ears -- probably a bad sign for last year's favourite narrow "exploit" tactics though (shall see).

Well the shifting isn't too fast in my opinion but it's clearly better than it was in the previous engine and in my opinion this has for example lowered the amounts of pass attempts for both strikers and midfielders which are still on high side but I would say that strikers now try 2-4 times less passes than they could with FM 2017 and midfielders maybe 2 times less excluding playmakers. 

What I would like to see in defense is that full backs and centre backs would aggressively step out of the line if possible: like if the attacking side is attacking short handed, then they should always be tightly on the back of the ball receiver whether is it a winger or a striker but they are still not doing that. Reported tons of examples for the last two iterations and nothing has changed. Especially wingers are still able to receive the passes with tons of space in front of them because full backs don't step of from the defensive line at any circumstances. 

The positive I have noticed during the beta is that many of the YouTubers seem to be struggling with the game so maybe this year the game is more challenging. 

[Mr U Rosler]

21 minutes ago, roykela said:

When doing teamtalks, pre-match, half-time and post-match, does it matter whether you click "End team talk" or not?


I've clicked it before continuing and i have continued without clicking it, after doing my talks.
I haven't noticed any difference. If that is the case, that it doesn't make a difference whether you click it or not, why is it there?
If it does make a difference. What is it?

I also wondered about this.

[ChelseaFan]

More "It seems we have different standards of a good performance" after praising a 9.0+ score...

Can't we just have "Disagrees, but appreciates your intention" morale outcome?

 

 

 

[Mr U Rosler]

10 minutes ago, El Payaso said:

Well the shifting isn't too fast in my opinion but it's clearly better than it was in the previous engine and in my opinion this has for example lowered the amounts of pass attempts for both strikers and midfielders which are still on high side but I would say that strikers now try 2-4 times less passes than they could with FM 2017 and midfielders maybe 2 times less excluding playmakers. 

What I would like to see in defense is that full backs and centre backs would aggressively step out of the line if possible: like if the attacking side is attacking short handed, then they should always be tightly on the back of the ball receiver whether is it a winger or a striker but they are still not doing that. Reported tons of examples for the last two iterations and nothing has changed. Especially wingers are still able to receive the passes with tons of space in front of them because full backs don't step of from the defensive line at any circumstances. 

The positive I have noticed during the beta is that many of the YouTubers seem to be struggling with the game so maybe this year the game is more challenging. 

 

A lot of players have historically employed a high press, high line in an attempt to overwhelm AI teams.

This year lone strikers position themselves right between the 2 Centre Backs and even non league defenders are adept at picking them out with a long pass so AI teams who are pushed back can park the bus, leave 1 guy forward and have a good chance of scoring on the Counter.

I haven’t been able to get a full on counter attacking set up of my own to click and are currently engaged in ‘mid pitch’ wars of attrition where I aim to be a little bit better at defending and a little bit better at attacking than my opponent, low shot counts and close games are the result but I’m doing pretty well.

It’s a good challenge.

This is non-league mind, might be different with top players!

[ChelseaFan]

I was going to say something like that.

You really have to fight to win games this year. I'm confident in my tactic, but I rarley win by more than one goal. Tense to the end.

[Guest El Payaso]

7 minutes ago, Mr U Rosler said:

 

A lot of players have historically employed a high press, high line in an attempt to overwhelm AI teams.

This year lone strikers position themselves right between the 2 Centre Backs and even non league defenders are adept at picking them out with a long pass so AI teams who are pushed back can park the bus, leave 1 guy forward and have a good chance of scoring on the Counter.

I haven’t been able to get a full on counter attacking set up of my own to click and are currently engaged in ‘mid pitch’ wars of attrition where I aim to be a little bit better at defending and a little bit better at attacking than my opponent, low shot counts and close games are the result but I’m doing pretty well.

It’s a good challenge.

This is non-league mind, might be different with top players!

I think the same 'trouble' with the lower leagues have been there always. I don't remember them parking the bus though but playing always a direct 4-4-2 where the two strikers are totally isolated from the team and the football they produce is super one dimensional.

This also though was the case when I faced Atletico Madrid too as they played the ball to their forwards really quickly and apparently as they were so isolated this didn't properly trigger the flat midfield to shift forward which lead Atletico constantly attacking with 3 players against 7-8 defending. Somehow though they did pull out couple of goals like that as my defending players didn't seem to be interested in engaging either with the winger or the striking duo. 

But how the 4-4-2 for example works in general in the ME looks really poor and once again could be fixed by making strikers defend and by that make them less isolated and more often triggering the midfield also support their attacks. I tried 4-4-2 myself also and stopped using it during the first highlight as I saw my two strikers loafing high up the pitch and feeling that it hurts my eyes too much. Of course with Loic Remy and Jonathan Calleri I would like to use that as I like both the players but I simply cannot. 

[Mr U Rosler]

4141 is where I am at the moment, great defensively as always, the difficulty is getting support to your striker quickly enough. The eternal struggle !

[themadsheep2001]

3 minutes ago, Mr U Rosler said:

4141 is where I am at the moment, great defensively as always, the difficulty is getting support to your striker quickly enough. The eternal struggle !

The Mezzala (in my personal experience) has been great for getting that support to the striker from the central position 

[corn_onthecurb]

Transfer window shuts before the season starts. Glad they got this in

[eye-switcher]

Like the game except for the pitch colour/brightness and Messis mohawk, like wtf?? He aint 17, breaks immersion

[rooneyviet]

After "playing" a lot of Youtube videos about FM18, I finally can't resist it. 

Got it from someone who got a square key for a good deal good price.

The next 7 days I will have no internet(due to moving to new place), but at least got something to entertain myself.

 

[Guest El Payaso]

57 minutes ago, Mr U Rosler said:

4141 is where I am at the moment, great defensively as always, the difficulty is getting support to your striker quickly enough. The eternal struggle !

Exactly and that mainly is because of the distance between the striker and the midfield when you win the ball back. Especially defenders also seem to rush too much playing the ball forward when they win it while they should be more composed and look for the best option or even take a risk if you have for example 'play out of defense' selected. The behavior especially with full backs seem to be that even if they have lots of space in front of them after winning the ball or easy passing options, they too often look for the striker or hoof the ball aimlessly. 

One more small detail in the ME is that the throw ins still seem to be the same and the marking on those is still dodgy and they actually are really good source for chances created. This once again is an area that I've been reporting about since FM 2015 and they still work exactly the same way. Either a free cross in as the thrower and receiver can always play a one-two or someone staying unmarked in the middle, most likely at the edge of the penalty area. The marking on throw ins simply is too loose and the thrower will always be unmarked which leads to free build ups. 

[Mr U Rosler]

23 minutes ago, themadsheep2001 said:

The Mezzala (in my personal experience) has been great for getting that support to the striker from the central position 

Thanks for the suggestion although I think they might conflict with the Inverted Wingers I've been having some success with............ hang on, wide players moving central, central players moving wide...... it's crazy but it might just work............ 

[MoxeysTheName]

@Neil Dejyothin don't know if this is your area but does a player's sexuality have an effect on Dynamics

[Neil Brock]

13 hours ago, kandersson said:

Please please please let me have an option to receive requested scouting reports as regular inbox instead of those dreaded scouting meetings, this really destroys scouting for me.

In the preferences tab of the scouting centre you can make the reports arrive in your inbox as frequently or infrequently as you like. 

[Sheriff7]

22 minutes ago, MoxeysTheName said:

@Neil Dejyothin don't know if this is your area but does a player's sexuality have an effect on Dynamics

 

[MoxeysTheName]

1 hour ago, Sheriff7 said:

 

Thank you for your kind answer @Sheriff7 but it would be nice if there was bit of feedback from SI on this forum instead of the deafening silence I've experienced so far when asking about this matter.

Hope I don't sound sarcastic, it's just that I have asked a few people and there has been no reply despite the fact that some of those people have visited the particular page on which the question was asked

Edited October 30, 2017 by MoxeysTheName

[kandersson]

16 minutes ago, Neil Brock said:

In the preferences tab of the scouting centre you can make the reports arrive in your inbox as frequently or infrequently as you like. 

It seems to me that they only arrive via scouting meetings together with several other reports, which makes it time consuming to find that specific report? I don't care much about frequency, I'd gladly have zero scouting meetings all year, I'd very much prefer having a single news in the inbox as soon as a single scouting report (or a scouting assignment) that I've requested is done and ready. Is this possible?

Edited October 30, 2017 by kandersson

[corn_onthecurb]

Just been asked this question about a new chairman. I received no news items about this prior

[Waghorny]

I'm not going to claim that I wrote these, but i saw these two reviews (and also the comments under each of them) and they fairly accurately explained how i felt about FM18. The UI and the new tactics screens are painful to navigate and properly work. If you could've kept the FM17 UI, but still added your new FM18 features, people would be a lot happier than they are right now.

[CapAtom]

Has the little scouting icon for when you are, unsurprisingly, scouting a player disappeared for all players you have asked to be scouted? I ask for a player to be scouted and on the players tab in the scouting section the only way I know if a player is being scouted is looking at them individually. Does it now only appear once the actual scouting has taken place?

 

This post was bought to you by the words scouting and scouted.

 

Also, I agree with a lot of the post above about the UI but without as much in the way of histrionics. I feel that about half the screens in the game could be lost if the information and interface was amalgamated into a more user friendly design. Never have there appeared to be more screens where I have to click to another screen to adjust what I want and then refer back to the previous screen but without the info from the screen I was just on being shown. It's quite disheartening and really makes playing the game a drag

Edited October 30, 2017 by CapAtom
Added moan at the end.

[herne79]

13 minutes ago, MoxeysTheName said:

Would be nice if there was bit of feedback from SI on this forum instead of the deafening silence I've experienced so far when asking about this matter

You poked both Miles and Neil B just an hour ago with the question.  And then Neil D with it again half an hour ago.

And because they didn't drop everything and come running you post that salty response after somebody else goes out of their way to give you Miles' twitter answer?

"Would be nice" if you thanked that person.

[MoxeysTheName]

2 minutes ago, herne79 said:

You poked both Miles and Neil B just an hour ago with the question.  And then Neil D with it again half an hour ago.

And because they didn't drop everything and come running you post that salty response after somebody else goes out of their way to give you Miles' twitter answer?

"Would be nice" if you thanked that person.

Was going to say thanks but didn't want to offend the person by implying that their answer didn't matter.

[phnompenhandy]

27 minutes ago, Sheriff7 said:

 

In the game as in real life, that's exactly as it should be.

[gibbo11]

Is it really that difficult to switch up or add more options to conversations/press conferences/team talks? This side of the game is so tedious and I shouldn't need to have to delegate to my assistant. It's been the same for years, surely those that make the game get bored of them too?

Personally feel this is a step, possibly even two steps back this year. Appreciate the work that goes into 3D but it still looks far from natural - as mentioned in here a few times, the decor off the pitch, especially for lower league clubs is nothing like real life. Ruins the immersion. Players don't move and kick as you'd expect, looks clunky. The screenshots I've seen of regens again ruin immersion and add to that the removal of the real 2D Classic (yes, I know '2D classic is in, but it's the old 2D renamed), which because it uses the 3D engine, makes movements seem unnatural and my experience of watching the match.

UI issues have been done to death already in the thread so won't waste time talking about them.

I feel like this edition made plenty of changes for changes sake. Where we really needed changes were overlooked again.

Sorry guys!

Edit: I do really like the medical centre and the partnership addtion. 2 changes I am on board with.

Edited October 30, 2017 by gibbo11

[chapperz92]

In the full game will it be possible to get an individual scouting report on each player you request it on (like in previous games). Or will they stay bundled together with other reports. This may sound like such a small aspect but I think it ruins the immersion of the game. IRL a manager would get a report on his desk of a scouted player, the scout wouldn’t wait a week and bundle them all together, or worse wait for you to visit the scouts office. This has been mentioned a few times in this thread but I haven’t seen a definitive answer. I know you can ask your scout to give you daily updates but I’d like to return to the old system of getting an individual report on each player, makes it easier to find in your inbox.

 

 

[MoxeysTheName]

13 minutes ago, herne79 said:

You poked both Miles and Neil B just an hour ago with the question.  And then Neil D with it again half an hour ago.

And because they didn't drop everything and come running you post that salty response after somebody else goes out of their way to give you Miles' twitter answer?

"Would be nice" if you thanked that person.

I have edited my post and explained the situation. Hope the saltiness to which you are referring is no longer there, in your eyes.

[Guest El Payaso]

How are transfers in this version? I've seen that Chelsea are able to sign Alba during the first transfer window from Barcelona and Liverpool at least looking to sign Sergi Roberto. I don't think that either of these should happen as:

1. Barcelona are higher profile club than either of those two.

2. Both are really important players that the fans love and they basically should be looking to keep them at all cost as they cannot basically find better options. 

Would have hoped that these kind of scenarios weren't in the game anymore. It should be other way around and Barcelona possibly being able to unsettle Chelsea and Liverpool players. 

[NabsKebabs]

I've managed to play a lot more today.

Still hate the UI, such an unnecessary overhaul of something that was perfectly fine. Finding things is way harder and extra clicks everywhere.

2D on FM17 way better (I don't at all bother with 3D). 2D on FM18 feels like some arcade game.

So many injuries.

And something that really needs to be sorted out - players getting upset way too easily and subsequently the whole squad getting upset. It's ridiculous how easily the whole squad gets upset.

FM17 > FM18 by a mile for me.

It would be nice to mention something that I think is good but honestly the game has just gone completely backwards imo. 

EDIT: Actually, I do think the match engine is very good.

Edited October 30, 2017 by NabsKebabs

[Glenn Wakeford]

18 minutes ago, gibbo11 said:

Is it really that difficult to switch up or add more options to conversations/press conferences/team talks? This side of the game is so tedious and I shouldn't need to have to delegate to my assistant. It's been the same for years, surely those that make the game get bored of them too?

Ultimately, yes it is. There is a finite amount of text we can add in for each version due to time and budget constraints. Something that's easy to overlook is that all the text needs to be translated into many different languages, so there has to be a cut-off point somewhere. Then that text will need to be hooked into the gameplay to ensure it's appearing correctly, so that's even further time needed for the coders.

We are constantly adding new options and strings in all areas of the game, and increased variation. We have a huge amount of text in the game already that covers almost everything, so most text improvements are aimed towards new features, or plugging in gaps. You will tend to find that the more you play of the game, the more you will notice these differences as they tend to be context-specific. That also means that depending on the circumstances of your save games, you may not see all the new additions.

[Nikopol]

I disagree on FM17's UI being perfectly fine. It had already complicated things and made the inbox a hassle, that took a loooong time to get through. It has just gotten worse. With more and more clicks being needed, scouting reports pushing me to look through 40 scouting reports and determine for every player if i want to see him or not. The old recommendation system was very effective, highlight 3 players that were perceived to be the most important and if i wanted to see more i was still able to check the other reports that had been done. Also there are a lot of lagging and slow menus, which especially with the additional clicks are really annoying. Giving a team talk before the match was a matter of seconds before, now it feels like an exhausting task in it itself.

Mechanically i think this game is a step forward, a serious step forward. I had wished for the dynamics feature for a long time and find it's execution fundamentally succesful. This is part of the strategy to make me understand why my team behaves the way it does, and it works, so thanks for that. Though it doesn't seem to be as dynamic and influential as it should be. Squad reactions still seem a bit unrealistic and awkward. Nonetheless a step forward.

Also some nice added functionality to the scouting system, even though i think the UI suffered  from a style over substance approach. Especially as someone who favours 1-nation teams, the option to give directions to my chief scout is a welcomed edition.

3D looks better, far from natural yes, but better.

I don't want to go into all the small and annoying UI problems that have been outlined, i just want to mention that please, please fix the Name-display in the Match engine, with the condition/mf-bar and the grey box.

What i miss is a training overhaul. Training is such an essential step, to see how players are developing, to see who works hard, to implement my idea of football, to teach players and sooo on. I feel it is atm an ineffective tool to analyze the players and to develop my playstyle.

All in all, i regret that i didn't have the endurance to wait for next year, when the Bundesliga will be added. I hope and think that SI realizes that germany is traditionally THE football manager market, and that their start into this country should be invested into properly. With serious and professional AR's, a large marketing campaign and a polished and well-functioning product.