FM09 Demo - injuries

[earmack]

........How many players were seriously injured in real life pre-season for the premiership (for example) 1? This is completely broken, I can only imagine this is some attempt to stop piracy (make these games unplayable) noone is this incompetent.

I'd like to see ANY evidence that in real life players are more likely to get injured in pre-season.

[dirtyprettymagpie]

I've had a few quickstarts now and they've all been ruined due to the fact that my team has been riddled with injuries but my most recent game as Newcastle has been the worst yet. Ten players injured (which is looking pretty common judging by many other posts) but EIGHT of them are strikers and FOUR of them are out for 6 months!!

I'm trying to get to grips with the new tactics system (which is proving immensely tricky as it is) and it's proving even more difficult given the fact it's virtually impossible to play the same eleven twice and get settled side.

Following the second patch for FM08 the balance seemed just about right so if it isn't broke why fix it? I deem the demo unplayable.

[Kriss]

Has it occurred to anybody that you have to treat pre season like a real pre season, you have to nurse them into match fitness pretty carefully.

There is a factor which might have an adverse effect at the beginning of course, training doesn't start to take effect for about 3 weeks, just wonder if that might not be contributing to the problem.

So even if you get the best trainers and concentrate on fitness it's not doing anything in that first critical period.

[Anon-187]

For the people saying that this isn't really an issue. You don't know what you're talking about.

PaulC's explanation is really **** poor as well. It's patently obvious it's not just a preseason fitness issue, it's a systematic flaw with player conditions.

There are 2 problems. One, injuries occur too often and too severely. And two, players fitness levels go down way too fast during a game. The injuries are exacerbated by tiring players, but why are players so tired so quickly? I'm one of those managers who always, always subbed anyone with condition less than 80% in previous iterations of FM. I'm habitually obsessed with keeping all my players match fit and rotate my squad accordingly. During friendlies I sub my whole team at half time. You could notice that in general midfielders tire slightly more than defenders and attackers. They're the ones who are more likely to go under 80% during a game. However now, in FM09, every midfielder goes from 100% to 60% every single match. This also directly correlates with the new distance covered statistic. For some reason the team seems to think midfielders run a whole km more than any other position player, that's just not the case in reality. Overall besides central defenders & goalkeepers you'd be lucky to keep anyone above 70% condition by the end of any game.

The other part is the frequency, length & severity of the injuries. I'd like to point out to those people who think 6-7 injuries is very normal. There's a huge difference between a team that's built up 6-7 injuries over the course of a season and one that gets 6-7 month long injuries over 3-4 matches. The reason Arsenal has 7 injured players is because Eduardo and Rosicky have been out with long term injuries for a while, since last season in fact. They didn't just receive these injuries since this preseason. Furthermore, it took Arsenal a freak game with an unlikely 3 injuries just to get to 7. That's not to mention we don't even know the extent of those injuries. Adebayor, Sagna might not even miss any time at all with their knocks. Gallas and Eboue might be back after one game. This new version of FM09 don't seem to have knocks where you miss just 1 or 2 games. Even week long injuries end up taking 2 weeks by the time you train back to fitness.

I don't really understand PaulC's nonchalance about the subject. It's been asked several times already, but did you guys not play the game once or twice before going gold? It's hard to imagine any player, even a novice, missing something like this.

[pelicanstuff]

Has it occurred to anybody that you have to treat pre season like a real pre season, you have to nurse them into match fitness pretty carefully.

There is a factor which might have an adverse effect at the beginning of course, training doesn't start to take effect for about 3 weeks, just wonder if that might not be contributing to the problem.

So even if you get the best trainers and concentrate on fitness it's not doing anything in that first critical period.

This is correct. Also playing pre-season friendlies 3 days apart is suicide, are you really surprised that your players who've been on holiday for a couple of months are coming back and tearing hamstrings etc? Sheesh.

[Kesteral]

3 games played so far, only suffered 2 injuries. Both players out for quite a while though.

[yankee_ram]

I started another game and had less injuries overall but the length of them are longer. I just bought Leroy Lita from Reading, full fitness when I did and two games in he is now out for 2 months. As much as I am enjoying the game this is one aspect that is taking the fun out of it.

[pelicanstuff]

I started another game and had less injuries overall but the length of them are longer. I just bought Leroy Lita from Reading, full fitness when I did and two games in he is now out for 2 months. As much as I am enjoying the game this is one aspect that is taking the fun out of it.

Well, the same does happen in real life, Nacho Gonzalez, Behrami for example - new players at prem clubs do get injured.

[yankee_ram]

Well, the same does happen in real life, Nacho Gonzalez, Behrami for example - new players at prem clubs do get injured.

I know that, but its the fact that I have gotten no fewer then 7 players injured for 4 weeks or more in a span of one month. There are far too many injuries in this demo. I am sure it will be dealt with but my recent match had 3 of my players injured and 2 of the opposition as well.

[well-made]

Strarted playing the demo this morning as Motherwell.

my assistant informed me he was worried about the goalkeeper being the weakest position. So using about a 1/4 of my whopping £50K transfer kitty, I bring in a keeper, also had a bid and a contract accepted by another keeper but decided to cancel his transfer.

First training session my new keeper is out with a hip problem for 2 months, that's seeing a specialist.

Just played my first league game. One of my strikers now injured.

Following day I lose my first team keeper (2 months) and my under 19 keeper (2 weeks).

I now have a total of 11 players out injured and in this case is making the demo almost unplayable as I'll be putting up my U19's against the top clubs and possibly in the Uefa Cup if it keeps going.

[BoLLyz]

Ok, as match injuries fall under my responsibility here is my take.

Yes, there are a few too many, but I wont be allowing the patch to go out with too few either as they are part and parcel of modern football as one can see from the real life injury tables.

A major thing for the user to remember is that tired players get injured easier. So pre-season is a real danger time.....treat those games as run-outs and replace players who are tired at half time etc.

What I intend to do for the patch is:

- Reduce the pre-season condition drop ( players coming back from summer at 75% etc ) in order to reduce pre-season injuries

- Make a higher proportion of match injuries of the lighter variety

Cheers,

Paul Collyer

Why do you say that tired players get injured faster? IMO brave players get injured all the time, those who dive into most tackles and those who throw their head into the opponents foot.

I had training workload set to medium, my time wasting was set to high and I had 12 injured players after every match, after a few recovered, few got injured, and it became unplayable, REALLY!

I've heard there is a 4% of all players set to be injured, wich is really poor setup for a simulation game, cause it's not simulating anything, just making 4% of players injured; as you said its an important part of modern football, I think it should have a difference approach that will include as close to realistic factors as possible, not a plain percentage.

[PaulC]

As I said, we will tune this better for the patch. I cant do any more than that, apart from sympathize with those who are hit by an unrealistic injury list.

But I stand by what I said about pre-season, and tired players, with the caveat that the patch will a) see players come back from off season slightly fitter and b) see players condition drop a little less in match.

[Selleckta]

As I said, we will tune this better for the patch. I cant do any more than that, apart from sympathize with those who are hit by an unrealistic injury list.

But I stand by what I said about pre-season, and tired players, with the caveat that the patch will a) see players come back from off season slightly fitter and b) see players condition drop a little less in match.

Seems reasonable to me.

[GillsMan]

I am now a victim of the injury bug, four games in and 5 of my players are out with injuries.

Paul Green: 4 weeks

Robbie Savage: 5 weeks

Nacir Barazite: 2 weeks

Tito Villa: 6 weeks

Miles Addison: 3 months

Come on, this is unrealistic.

Yes, this is TOTALLY unrealistic!! I agree!!

I'm managing West Ham in my save and Parker, Behrami, Noble, Ashton, Gabbidon, Spector and Dyer are ALL out!!! It's a complete joke and totally unrealistic. Sort it out SI!!

Oh, wait...

[pelicanstuff]

Yes, this is TOTALLY unrealistic!! I agree!!

I'm managing West Ham in my save and Parker, Behrami, Noble, Ashton, Gabbidon, Spector and Dyer are ALL out!!! It's a complete joke and totally unrealistic. Sort it out SI!!

Oh, wait...

I used that site to do some calculations and worked out that over my several saves, there are on average about 1.5 too many injuries at once per club. It's a bit annoying, but it's not as wildly over the top as a lot of people are saying.

[cmontheloknow]

Like one or two others here, I have had almost zero problem with injuries. From way back in 1999 at CM3 when I started playing the series, I have never allowed a player with condition much below 65% to stay on the pitch, no matter what stage of the game, unless I had used all subs (which tends to only happen during a season when condition of players is higher). If their condition is below 90% I don't even start them unless completely unavoidable, but if they do then I watch for 65% condition and sub them.

I have played 4 friendlies so far, default matches arranged by the game's set-up. In that time, I picked up one injury and had another lad with a pre-game one. I would have 12 subs on the bench and would make sure anyone struggling for fitness was subbed, even if that meant using 10+ of them.

Anyone trying to play their best XI in every match in pre-season is a certainty to end up with a season ticket for FM Casualty. Friendlies are there to condition players for the new season, little else.

[Stephanie McMahon's Secret Lover]

I'm not suffering with this at all.

I have always just let the assman sort out the friendlies as he rotates players better than I do.

Remember some games in pre-season are just a couple of days after the last one.

[jbrowes]

Yep, same deal on my game. 5 long term injuries (1 month +) in 2 games. I started as Inter, with my whole backline pretty much injured as well, so now half my squad is gone!

Similar situation with Chelsea - After correcting this same problem last year by patch, why go and change it for FM 09? So annoying!

[Jakk89]

I think what is really annoying me and others is the fact that you guys will not acknowledge this as a bug but insisting that it is a feature. Having 4-6 players injured in one game, and half(if not most) your team injured is not realistic. We know SI is trying their best to fix it and there will be a patch out on the day the game comes out but the least you could do is admit that you guys let this slip past you instead of saying 'oh, it was a feature that might be a tad oversensitive, but why the big commotion?'.

ps. For those that are trying to bring in real-life injuries and comparing it, some of those injuries are from last season, and if u check when they got injured, i assure you it wasn't all 6 in one game nor are the injuries all in the space of a week, nor were they in pre-season, and half of the injuries weren't from breaking their foot in training.

[Sy13]

But I stand by what I said about pre-season, and tired players, with the caveat that the patch will a) see players come back from off season slightly fitter and b) see players condition drop a little less in match.

His Paul, sorry to be a pain but what exactly will this achieve? Players are still going to get injured and when they do it'll be for months at a time. Maybe instead of getting 3 players injured per game it'll now be 1 or 2, but both for a long period.

Maybe I've missed something but this doesn't really fix the problem. Can you not just implement the injuries program from FM08 (after patch)?? Surely that would be the best solution...

[Selleckta]

Has anyone tried being really careful with the amount of preseason game time they give players, especially those with lower condition levels?

[pelicanstuff]

Has anyone tried being really careful with the amount of preseason game time they give players, especially those with lower condition levels?

Yes, and I have an average of injuries way below the other teams in the division. I also turn down training intensity a couple of notches for a couple of days after each game.

It is quite easy to alleviate the problem with regard to your own team. The AI still has too many though - see my post above.

[Selleckta]

So, really, this probably just needs a little tweak in the patch, as PaulC indicates above. Everyone's getting so worked up about this!

[Freeman21]

My god, has the entire FM dev team changed ? I haven't read the forums for quite some time now, but after playing the latest demo, i thought i must have downloaded the wrong thing, so i went back here to check out how others are doing.

+10 injured players after only 3 matches ? is this still Football Manager or Injury Crisis manager ? honestly now, how can you be a dev, see a whole bunch of people complaining about the ridiculous amount of injuries, and still maintain your nose up and say something which basically means:

"You bunch of morons should look at real life situations first, before complaining. Ok, we'll slightly reduce them, but just slightly".

First, whoever says that a real life football squad has more than 10 (!!!!) players injured in just 2-3 weeks, is an idiot, a freaking brainless idiot who doesn't have a clue about football.

Second, "slightly reduce the number of injuries" ? How many people have to complain in order for you to actually realize that the situation is disastrous ? Is it so hard for a dev to say: "Ok, we messed up, but we'll fix it" ? rather than "no, it's not our fault, it's just that all of you are clueless about how FM works".

I remember the good old times, when you guys used to patch things up, and admit that feature X is crap and needs to be fixed. What happened SI ? Did the sack of money go to your head ?

[Selleckta]

Freeman21, have you tried being very cautious with the amount of game time you give your squad preseason?

[rlipscombe]

it's only the demo..... if SI had not released the demo and had waited until release day to play it, people would have been unhappy. if the release of the game had been delayed until when we would get the 1st patch, people would complain. There have always been problems on the demos (and initial patch) so it amazes me that people still moan moan moan...

yes they make a lot of money and yes people expect the best straight away, but it's a massive game data wise etc, and Si are trying to evolve the game all the time. if they hadn't pushed the game on for FM09 and it had basically been a date update, the complaints would still come.

SI, you do a great job in the grand scheme of things.

[outlander]

As I said, we will tune this better for the patch. I cant do any more than that, apart from sympathize with those who are hit by an unrealistic injury list.

But I stand by what I said about pre-season, and tired players, with the caveat that the patch will a) see players come back from off season slightly fitter and b) see players condition drop a little less in match.

It's good that you will fix it. But IMHO it's a shame that you are fixing things that look quite realistic to me and not fixing the real reasons for this problem which are too unrealistic.

Players coming for pre-season should be very unfit and they should tire quite a lot during the match. But I think the influnce of tiredness on chance of getting injured is way exaggerated. I think a player with 70% condition should have 10-20% more chances of injury and it's pretty obvious that now it's at least 100% if not more.

And also one srious problem I see in current situation is that there are way too many long term injuries and not enough short-term. Almost every match a taem gets a player injured for 2-7 days and in demo such injuries happen in about the same numbers as 3+month injuries.

[Irasekhi]

PaulC & SI, your manner is absolutely unrespectful.

how this is possible that all of old fans which play this game for years are wrong about something as clear as this!?

just accept your mistake and show some respect to your amazing fans, if not you will lose them easily.

but apart from this bug, the game is a lot better than FM08, although i still need to see regens (very important for me).

so tnx for good parts of the game.

sorry for my english, if is not good enough.

[outlander]

although i still need to see regens (very important for me).

It's offtopic but you can easily see them in demo. Just start the brazilian quickstart and on 2nd of January you'll get the intake of regens.

[Bren_D]

have'nt had any injuries through the entire transfer window. i must've lucked out!

That or you look after your players. I haven't experienced an injury problem either and I've gone through three pre-seasons.

Did you all see the thread a while ago where someone bitched about condition not playing a large enough part in the game? Someone moaned that a team with all of their players starting at 50-60% was able to beat their fully fit side. I have a memory like a sieve, but the thread might well have been before the data lock and it raised an interesting point.

Inspired by that thread, or not as I expect SI might have noticed the problem, they tweak something and shock horror the game has an injury bug! If your ass man tells you a player is looking tired and suggests that you sub him, sub him. If a player gets down to 50% or so, sub him. If a player gets a knock and you've got a replacement on the bench and changes left, well you can guess where I'm going.

The only nastyish injury I've had is one of my players being out for a month or so having picked up a knock in game and aggravating it through playing the rest of the game as I didn't sub him. I expected what was true of 08 to be true of 09 and for him to be OK.

Just because something is different doesn't make it a bug. Looks like a lot of people might have to keep more of an eye out for the condition of their players rather than running them into the ground.

[Jakk89]

That or you look after your players. I haven't experienced an injury problem either and I've gone through three pre-seasons.

The only nastyish injury I've had is one of my players being out for a month or so having picked up a knock in game and aggravating it through playing the rest of the game as I didn't sub him. I expected what was true of 08 to be true of 09 and for him to be OK.

Just because something is different doesn't make it a bug. Looks like a lot of people might have to keep more of an eye out for the condition of their players rather than running them into the ground.

Have u even seen the screenshots that were posted a few pages back? did they not already tell you that some players were injured when they were 90%(start of the game) and whats stupid is that you're implying that it is because of neglect of their condition that injuries are happening. First of all, almost all ur players are going to go below 80% in a game, and you can only sub 3. That means atleast 2-3 injuries per game because you can't sub them out? It almost seems like SI is using ur logic to balance this game out.

On second thought, it might just be you trying to be all high and mighty. Well then, you are one of the few that are just groundbreaking managers that take such good care of their players that they rarely pick up an injury. Everyone online here complaining is just jealous. Really. We run our players into the ground while you treat them like ur own children.

'Just because something is different doesn't make it a bug'. Right, listed under features: injuries that plague half your team. Must've missed that feature. And there are no bugs, its just different! Play a game of football/soccer without a round-ball. It's not a bug, it's just different!

[saberhagen83]

Well before I got like 10-15 injuries during pre-season. No matter about condition or when I subbed a player off, as I never let them play more than 45min. I've restarted the save with Arsenal and have so far had 2 injuries, Bendtner for 2 weeks (light injury during match, subbed off right away obviously) and Walcott for 2 months however that was in training...things like that CAN happen.

So one of two things is happening in my re-started save. Either it's all down to pure luck or it's all down to the training. As I hate making tranings, as I suck at it, I took a chance and loaded up a FM08 I had. And now the injuries are much MUCH fewer. At least the pre-season training is working...I just hope they haven't changed much on the training part so the rest of it will work during the season too. I wouldn't be suprised if the preset training is just as crap as the tactics, it's too bad cause I doubt even 50% of the FM gamers actually make their own training, so you have to depend on someone that is good at it to make a set for you. Before it was really only good to develop your players, now it's super important for your pre-season too it seems. It probably is so IRL too, but I haven't heard anything about training beeing much more important this time around...unless I just got lucky this time...

[outlander]

Can we please stop talking all this crap about training and subbing tired players. Personally I always in all versions pay much attention to condition.

But we shouldn't talk about balance just by looking at a team that we play for. Just look at injury tables of all leagues. It shoudln't have influence on patch changes if someone has too many injuries or low cos of their training regimes and rotation policy. The overall statistics should be the thing being considered. And it's pretty obvious that there are way too many injuries across all leagues.

[PaulC]

PaulC & SI, your manner is absolutely unrespectful.

how this is possible that all of old fans which play this game for years are wrong about something as clear as this!?

just accept your mistake and show some respect to your amazing fans, if not you will lose them easily.

but apart from this bug, the game is a lot better than FM08, although i still need to see regens (very important for me).

so tnx for good parts of the game.

sorry for my english, if is not good enough.

If promising to fix it for the patch isnt doing the right thing I dont know what is!

Btw.....the balance of injury severities is also being fine tuned....I think I mentioned that in an earlier post.

[kkh]

I haven't found it that bad yet!

[Jakk89]

As I said, we will tune this better for the patch. I cant do any more than that, apart from sympathize with those who are hit by an unrealistic injury list.

But I stand by what I said about pre-season, and tired players, with the caveat that the patch will a) see players come back from off season slightly fitter and b) see players condition drop a little less in match.

If promising to fix it for the patch isnt doing the right thing I dont know what is!

Btw.....the balance of injury severities is also being fine tuned....I think I mentioned that in an earlier post.

Does it need 'fixing' or 'fine-tuning'? That is why Irasekhi called your tone disrespectful because it's almost as if you are belittling our intelligence by saying that this is 'realistic' and not something that's broken, more of a thing that needs 'fine-tuning' when in fact the problem is huge and is more of a 'broken' issue than a 'fine-tuning' one. Having most of ur team injured is not realistic and when you try to play it down like that and shrug it off as realistic and a small matter, we understandably get a little angry.

It makes us wonder if you guys properly tested the game before releasing the demo/game and how such a thing could've slipped by your testers/makers of the game.

Thank you for promising us the patch but the least u guys could do is own up to the fact that this is a wide-spread problem and needs 'fixing' instead of 'fine-tuning'. We don't need to be told that the elephant is an ant.

[Elohir]

Le sigh. Order cancelled.

Your QA is incompetent.

[A]bort, [R]etry, [F]ail?

[outlander]

I'm fast-forwarding the game till december and by the looks of it I can say that it need "fine-tuning" long term and fixing in pre-season/low condition problem.

After this test I will even consider starting the demo again and actually playing it for 6 months cos after first few months of crazyness it looks better.

[PaulC]

I'm just trying to be honest and up front. We have held our hands up and admitted it needs looking at.

Fact is, even when we do release the patch people who play players at low condition will risk them getting injured, and people with injury prone players will still see those players getting injured.

What we aim for is realism, not to make it too easy for people.

[outlander]

I also discovered now quite strange but interesting thing. I started the game with Man United. Got about 7 injuries by the 2nd premier league fixture, Brown and Balotelli got 6 months injuries of torn calf.

Then I retired and started fast forwarding the game. Now on 29th of November I was very surprised that in injury table of premier league United have only two injured players(one of Cleverly from reserves). I looked through injury histories and found out that Brown and Balotelli have 3 month injuries in their profiles and in fact it's less than 2.5 months since Balotelli injury.

So may be the situation looks so bad cos we get the info that injuries are much longer that they turn out to be. And anyway it's not right IMO and hould be looked at too.

[thebigman1985]

i guess its a hard line to find

but its very annoying

im still unsure whether ill buy the game atm, ill wait till release to see what people say, im sure the injury bug and text bugs will be fixed though, its just the 3d match engine and new tactics i will have to decide whether i want to learn/adjust to

[Deltaroad]

I'm just trying to be honest and up front. We have held our hands up and admitted it needs looking at.

Fact is, even when we do release the patch people who play players at low condition will risk them getting injured, and people with injury prone players will still see those players getting injured.

What we aim for is realism, not to make it too easy for people.

PaulC how did you guys miss the injury bug? Seems to be the first thing I noticed within the first three games.

[outlander]

people who play players at low condition will risk them getting injured, and people with injury prone players will still see those players getting injured.

Do you have good statistics on this or just that article you linked? Cos I think that the influence of condition is way over the top. Teams often play 2 pre-season games and I don't think they get twice as many injuries in pre-season comparing with regular season matches.

[Martin Allen]

in real life Luton have 10 first team players out injured many of which are for a month or over in total injury period, I would like to know when the patch will be released to fix this issue

[Selleckta]

PaulC how did you guys miss the injury bug? Seems to be the first thing I noticed within the first three games.

Were you deliberately managing the amount of gametime you gave players in the preseason friendlies?

[PaulC]

No I dont have statistics to prove it, but its something that would appear to be common consensus.

Take a look at some of the real life team lineups and substitutions in pre-season games ( especially the July ones ) and it all adds up.

[davhislop]

Is there anychance of a patch to fix this on release day....heartbreaking to get the game and playing poorly due to injuries and playing reserve players in there pos agaisnt likes of man utd ha

[Mr.S!N]

Is there anychance of a patch to fix this on release day....heartbreaking to get the game and playing poorly due to injuries and playing reserve players in there pos agaisnt likes of man utd ha

Try and read some other threads before asking about a patch....it must be up in at least 10 others and a sticky.

[Martin White]

Would be intresting to see what whould happen if people restarted and gave players 45mins in the first few pre season matches.

I wonder if we would then get a different reaction ?

[davhislop]

Well no because even if you cancelled al your friendles ....u would still then play 2 matches and get stupid injuries....players are too injury prone no matter wha situation there playing in.