Player unhappy promise not kept

[Spacebear345]

So I sighed kimmich and one of the promises was that I would strengthen the first team. So in the same window I also bought donnarumma and hoped for the best. After the window he comes and tells me he wants to leave because I didn't keep his promise, what do I do? Do goalkeepers not count? I have no money left to sign new players either

 

[cris182]

What team are you? What year are you in? 

Key thing is not to make promises unless you can keep them

[andy_gza]

It looks like he did keep the promise, as long as Donnarumma is better than the other keepers, job done.

[DanBucks1]

20 hours ago, Spacebear345 said:

So I sighed kimmich and one of the promises was that I would strengthen the first team. So in the same window I also bought donnarumma and hoped for the best. After the window he comes and tells me he wants to leave because I didn't keep his promise, what do I do? Do goalkeepers not count? I have no money left to sign new players either

 

In terms of keeping Kimmich happy your only options are reloading a save which is before the promise, or before the window shuts and signing more players. Other than that, if you have the in game editor you could use to “remove unhappiness”. 

[Legendary Manager]

I have had a player unhappy for over 12 months.... does he ever cheer up?

 

[amine.ess.95]

14 minutes ago, Legendary Manager said:

I have had a player unhappy for over 12 months.... does he ever cheer up?

 

Sometimes yes, if you're having good results and winning trophies, in most cases he will

[busngabb]

On 30/03/2020 at 19:15, Spacebear345 said:

So I sighed kimmich and one of the promises was that I would strengthen the first team. So in the same window I also bought donnarumma and hoped for the best. After the window he comes and tells me he wants to leave because I didn't keep his promise, what do I do? Do goalkeepers not count? I have no money left to sign new players either

 

This annoys me as well. I was playing as Everton and Jordan Pickford had a breakdown over me selling Richarlison to Man United. I had a chat with him and the only way to shut him up was to promise I'd be signing better players, so not to worry. It was a stupid one anyway as Richarlison didn't fit into my tactics and barely ever played. I used the money from him to buy Fabio Silva (Top scorer in the Prem, higher value and higher rep than Richarlison), Camavinga and Koulibaly (Vastly better than my centre backs of Mina and Holgate). Pickford told me at the end of the window that he'd lost his trust in me and didn't feel like he could speak to me again. Pickford's unhappiness messages stated he was moaning to other players and before long he'd roped Leon Bailey and Andre Gomes into hating me as well. Richarlison wasn't even in the top social group either. The whole squad just seems to be fragile and I forgot about Mason Holgate for a few games and now he's trying to stage a coup because I've not given him the agreed playing time. There really should be a 'sorry, I forgot you even existed. I'll play you now' option in the conversations.

I'm presuming the way the mechanic for this works is that you have to buy someone better in the same position? Richarlison being a winger wasn't replaced as I don't play wingers.

[FrazT]

The player happiness module is at best over-sensitive and at worst, flawed IMO..The squad's continual over reaction to decisions that you as manager make, particularly with regard to other player's playing time and contract is hard to understand.  I have found that if you are hard from day 1 and increase your discipline attribute, you can eventually say no regularly without too much impact, as long as the team is performing well on the pitch.

The obvious answer, however, is to promise nothing and that works as well.

[BMNJohn]

I reckon it's way easier to take the initial unhappiness hit from a player disagreeing with you than making any promise. In the end, Fergie said it the way it was: "my way or the highway" is easier than dealing with micro-managing the whim of each player in the squad.

[CityAndColour]

22 minutes ago, FrazT said:

The player happiness module is at best over-sensitive and at worst, flawed IMO..The squad's continual over reaction to decisions that you as manager make, particularly with regard to other player's playing time and contract is hard to understand.  I have found that if you are hard from day 1 and increase your discipline attribute, you can eventually say no regularly without too much impact, as long as the team is performing well on the pitch.

The obvious answer, however, is to promise nothing and that works as well.

Playing in the lower leagues is tough, as you can sell players to clubs in higher leagues and players just won't accept it as they don't seem to recognise natural career ambition.

"You could have done more to keep him"

I'm in the Conference South and I sold a prospect to the Championship. What more did you want me to do? I'm not going to try and keep him and stunt his career ffs.

[scass]

On 31/03/2020 at 21:57, Legendary Manager said:

I have had a player unhappy for over 12 months.... does he ever cheer up?

 

There are certain players who regardless of their squad status and the amount of playing time never seem to cheer up. I had Harry Kane, who was permanently "concerned" even when he was playing every game. Until you left him out for one game, and then he was "alienated." I have three midfielders - two squad players, one regular starter, all have been concerned for two seasons, again regardless of playing time. 

The squad status thing is a great idea, but it seems to me to need a little refinement.

[Danielfc]

The players happiness is awful in this game. For example I constantly have players unhappy at their situation at club, and it NEVER shows why they're unhappy in their unhappiness section. I've started three threads on this in bugs but SI deem in not important enough to successfully investigate. 

Despite what some people above say, the "my way or the highway" approach can work in real life because they're humans being managed. This is a set of numbers, and morale does negatively affect the way your players play if it is low. And like Covid - IT SPREADS 

[AurioDK]

I bought a world class GK at some point, I did promiss him to bring in a friend ... I didn´t know about that and was out of funds anyway. He was unhappy for 3 seasons, justified? maybe .... I thought he would make other friends once he learned the language or speak to the other Portuguese in the club as I had 4 of those (the GK was Brazilian), he was apparently socially awkward I guess and never got a friend.

To be fair, he did perform okayish in the 3 seasons. 

[sporadicsmiles]

I just get rid of all these things like this in contract negotiation. Since it is never clear what I have to do. Strengthen my squad by what metric? 

[FrazT]

1 hour ago, sporadicsmiles said:

I just get rid of all these things like this in contract negotiation. Since it is never clear what I have to do. Strengthen my squad by what metric? 

Correct- If the money offer is right, all other conditions can be excluded without any effect whatsoever.

[KingCanary]

2 hours ago, sporadicsmiles said:

I just get rid of all these things like this in contract negotiation. Since it is never clear what I have to do. Strengthen my squad by what metric? 

I've always found these promises to be too vague.

There is no real guide as to what 'strengthen the squad/position/coaching staff really means.' Similarly with concerns about lack of depth- what is enough depth? Does it take tactics into consideration? For example if I only use one striker, I'd be happy with having 3 in the first team squad, especially if I've got a decent option in the youth teams or a player who can play upfront as a secondary position.

[Etebaer]

Yeah these "Promises", you allways have to keep an eye on the Promise Section and as long it is not a green Bubble the Promise is not fullfilled and even it is fullfilled a simple sale of a to you complete unimportant Player may be seen as promise breaking.

I had this situation recently when i promised to strengthen my Defenders and go one i bought only to fullfill the promise with the Intention to let him go asap and then got Hand on an 18yrs old supertalent and thought that may do and shelved the other Player but instead it broke the promise - yet the 18yrs old is so much better but of lacks reputation by now.

The Players immediatealy asked to leave the club but as i had wisely given them contracts for some more years already i said stay and get over it - by the winter Transfer window they will have forgotten it already and be happy to stay...

Edited April 2, 2020 by Etebaer

[yolixeya]

6 minutes ago, KingCanary said:

I've always found these promises to be too vague.

There is no real guide as to what 'strengthen the squad/position/coaching staff really means.' Similarly with concerns about lack of depth- what is enough depth? Does it take tactics into consideration? For example if I only use one striker, I'd be happy with having 3 in the first team squad, especially if I've got a decent option in the youth teams or a player who can play upfront as a secondary position.

I didn't really experience any problems with promising to strenghthen the squad. I alwas just bring a player that has better current ability perceived by scouts then the player I was letting go when the issue came up. If I think I can't bring someone like that I don't make that promise.

However I did have some problems with the squad depth issue. I was playing with 4 at the back and in that case form 4 CBs are enough but some of my players had a slight concern about depth in CB position, In the end I just ignored them but it was a bit annoying.

 

[Legendary Manager]

yes mine slipped past me somehow. I had allegedly agreed to loan him out and even though he was starting game (30+ starts) he was unhappy I didnt loan out WTF

[yau]

On 01/04/2020 at 00:30, FrazT said:

The obvious answer, however, is to promise nothing and that works as well.

Its impossible to renew ANY contract with talented U18 player without promise to loan them out. 

I was trying to play 4 clubs from 3 different leagues and its always ending the same way. I can't renew contract and give chance to young player in the first team, because I gonna break promise.

I cant even loan them out to club with best training facilities or to club where they gonna play in the first team and reject worse offers at the same time because they gonna get angry.

Game in unplayable for my playstyle. I love to play in spanish league and develop young talents. But in this version I gonna lost my best wonderkids due to low free relese clausule or I gonna stop their develop by loan them to clubs which they dont ganna get play time.

[HUNT3R]

2 hours ago, yau said:

Its impossible to renew ANY contract with talented U18 player without promise to loan them out. 

I was trying to play 4 clubs from 3 different leagues and its always ending the same way. I can't renew contract and give chance to young player in the first team, because I gonna break promise.

I cant even loan them out to club with best training facilities or to club where they gonna play in the first team and reject worse offers at the same time because they gonna get angry.

Game in unplayable for my playstyle. I love to play in spanish league and develop young talents. But in this version I gonna lost my best wonderkids due to low free relese clausule or I gonna stop their develop by loan them to clubs which they dont ganna get play time.

I've been able to remove the promise to loan them out and renew young players' contracts. Not sure what's different between my situation and yours though. Maybe linked to manager reputation relative to the club stature or something like that.

[Mr U Rosler]

I've seen the loan player out promise hard coded into a contract offer many times. In fact every time it appears it cannot be removed in my save.

Invariably i try to loan him out and there are no takers and he will come to me later and call me liar to my face, in the absence of the ability to punch him in the face, i was immediately giving them a free transfer, can't be dealing with cocky teenagers.  

However, i've since learn't that as long as you offer them out 4 or 5 times each window they acknowledge you've been trying and don't kick off.

 

 

 

 

Edited January 22, 2021 by Mr U Rosler

[Mike J]

I think the main problems are the combination of vague conditions (what exactly do you mean by "improve"?) and the binary nature of the player's reactions to breaking the promises. You can have a new signing happily getting on with life, training well, playing well, raking in two or three times what they were on at their old club but then the day after the window closes it's full-on toys out the pram, transfer-request-submitted meltdown.

I agree with one of the previous posters who said the happiness module needs work. I think it needs a lot more nuance and situational awareness from the players. The biggest issue is often not being able to explain the situation to them due to limited conversation options. You should be able to point out you don't need your star winger any more because the formation you've used for the last 50+ games doesn't use them. Better yet, players should realise that themselves! This also seems to affect the end of season meetings. I had a fantastic second season in the Premier League with Boro and qualified for the Champions League. I recognised this was down to a lot of luck on my part after Chelsea and Arsenal both imploded in the last couple of months but figured with the decent transfer budget and a good young team I'd be able to make top half easily the next season. When I told them that, half the squad went mental and told me I was being far too ambitious. Obviously the game's looking at my rep relative to the rest of the league but I think it needs to take into account recent performances much more than it currently does. Or maybe it also needs to have more moderate reactions and fewer at the extreme ends of the scale.

[Rich2086]

Some of the promises annoy me, offered my best youth player a new contract and he requested in it that I loan him out. I couldn't remove it. So I reluctantly offer him out for loan and only one club back and they want him to be a fringe player, I negotiate but they won't budge. I rejected it as what's the point in the player going out on loan to not play. Of course he kicks off and wants to leave permanently  

 

Ended up finding him a loan and hopefully he'll have forgotten about it when he's back. 

[zep81]

Signed a player Jan 10th. Feb 2nd comes and he wants to leave. All because I broke a promise of not signing any defenders. I did sign a right back, which obviously didn't count.

I tried to remove the promise prior to signing him, but couldn't. Can be annoying.

[glengarry224]

I loaned a left-back and promised that he'd be a squad player and play fullback at LB.  Even though he's playing more than promised -- he is a regular starter -- both he and his home club manager are upset because he's playing wingback, instead of fullback, at LB.  And we're winning.  And I'm one of his favored personnel.

[zep81]

17 hours ago, glengarry224 said:

I loaned a left-back and promised that he'd be a squad player and play fullback at LB.  Even though he's playing more than promised -- he is a regular starter -- both he and his home club manager are upset because he's playing wingback, instead of fullback, at LB.  And we're winning.  And I'm one of his favored personnel.

They need to take those role promises out tbh. Same with some loan deals where you may not be playing a plsyer in a specific role, even though he's plsyed every single bloody minute.

[kentonizking]

On 03/04/2020 at 13:09, Legendary Manager said:

yes mine slipped past me somehow. I had allegedly agreed to loan him out and even though he was starting game (30+ starts) he was unhappy I didnt loan out WTF

I had that one too.

Player had broken through and was getting 1st team games regularly. I would have thought that would nerf the career desire to go play for Solihull, Hayes, etc for 6 months!!

[bowieinspace]

13 hours ago, zep81 said:

They need to take those role promises out tbh. Same with some loan deals where you may not be playing a plsyer in a specific role, even though he's plsyed every single bloody minute.

Yep I have this annoyance with James Maddison. Signed him on my Villa save, I’m almost certain I removed the promises but perhaps I missed it. Anyway, he plays the full season for me in central midfield, on cm(a), we win the league which was a huge over achievement. End of the season and he kicks off about not playing an ap role, and no convincing will work, he wants to leave. This attracts interest from United who make a fairly weak offer for him, non-negotiable which I reject. He then comes to me saying he’s disappointed because United could offer more money and he wants the move, so I ask him how much he wants. We agree a figure and I proceed to contract negotiations, settle on a new deal etc and I think it’s over. Oh no...he comes back a few days later and rejects the contract, then complains that I didn’t keep my promise to give him a new deal.

Yeah ok mate.

[kevhamster]

On 31/03/2020 at 23:30, FrazT said:

The player happiness module is at best over-sensitive and at worst, flawed IMO..The squad's continual over reaction to decisions that you as manager make, particularly with regard to other player's playing time and contract is hard to understand.  I have found that if you are hard from day 1 and increase your discipline attribute, you can eventually say no regularly without too much impact, as long as the team is performing well on the pitch.

The obvious answer, however, is to promise nothing and that works as well.

True. 

When it comes to the playing time promise, if you break it because you play the player and he played like dog toffee, I'd like the option of telling him this. 

[Jervaj]

Yeah I think the system is quite cool in design and objective, but there is indeed several problems as have been commented here that could use some polish as they can lead to much frustration:

- Promises are extremely vague, which a lot of the time leads to to feel like you fullfilled it to discover later than apparently not.

Promises too rigid in their target. Giving something better in exchange still makes the players amd as it isnt what was promised.

- Reactions are overall too extreme. Its either they are happy you fulfilled or they are super mad. There should be middle ground, specially if you did something even if maybe wasn't as good as they wanted.

- Players feel a bit unaware/unrealistic sometimes with their demands. To a point I guess this could be realistic. But still feels very odd a times. 

 

About the last one, I think it will go a long way to deal with most issues. I have the feeling that they want to avoid the module been "too easy" and something you can forget about just by not doing something ridiculous. But players asking for/regreting you sold players that dont fit your tactic can be really annoying. At least there should be an option to say that is the reason in the meetings. "No, sorry I dont need wingers in my narrow formation".

In negotiations it can be hard to compensate at times because promises have to be agreed before you follow into the actual contract. I have currently in my save a 37 yo GK that is still my bets GK and I wanted to renew while the young GK I use as backup develops. He is already declining and yet he was fixed on having his status raised from first keeper to important player. I didnt want to as I want to line up the younger keeper in easy/low priority matches to give him experience, and from past experiences important player in GKs really requires you to line them up almost all of the time to be fulfilled (I assume due to them always been top condition/fresh). I actually expect him to play less as time goes by and he declines further.

So I tried to lower the promise to maintaining the current status. He kept insisting so I made it no negotiable. Guess what he added? Non negotiable strengthen defence and win title. Which you could say, exigent but could be possible/reasonable? Except this already during the season after I have already spent basically all my transfer budget for the year and having, between already completed transfers and future transfers, already arranged 6 defenders. Just to put the cherry on top I have youngsters coming from the lower teams coming up on those positions to compliment and I made the squad promise of giving youngsters playing time.  On the competition side the expectation set on the pre season was europe league and we are not precisely overachieving.

Who would sincerely ask for that given the whole context?

I withdrew from negotiations, will try later in the season again to see if he sees hismelf without a team and becomes more reasonable, but if not I would rather bite the bullet let him go and spend some money on another veteran but still good GK to use for a while and replace him. A shame, but its not worth the trouble he could cause given his influence. In a smaller team with less budget I see how this kind of situation could be really problematic though.

 

And part of the problem is that you actuallly get better results by been more dickish/lazy and gaming the system a bit instead of trying to be consequential. I have found by experience that there is a relativelly simple way of getting around a lot of players requests. Simply leave negotiations to DoF or if done yourself over promise playing time and then reduce it.

DoF agreements never seem to come with extra promises and if the playing time is too high its the easiest things to manage as mentioned below.

When you are "generous" promising game time is not rare for your DoF (or whatever staff you have asigned to report you on players status and transfers) to mention that the player is not good enough and suggest a promsie reduction. Accepting his advice by clicking on the arrow doesn't seem to have consequences or barelly. Even if you don't want to wait for that /the option doesn't appear and you do it manually a lot of the time it just means a short term morale hit. Others they start bitching and raise the "issue" but 90% of the time you can fix it with a discussion or by asking your captain. Even if that fails you may have a bigger/more prolongued hit, but I have never seen it become dresser room breaking issue or having to seek a way out for the player like other priomises do.

 

 

[Tyburn]

Personally I’ve had a few instances where a player has got mad but I’ve somehow managed to say the right thing to completely bring him round. It is possible. I’ve also had it where they’ve left the meeting upset, but not “I want an immediate transfer” upset.

So, for me at least, the balance between nightmare, success and crucially, that grey area of “fair enough, that’s realistic” is present.

[jammy8892]

The promise system has its flaws certainly. I find that the "preferred position + role" is way too specific. I don't have an issue with players requesting to be played in a certain position, however in a specific role - and to get upset over it - is borderline ridiculous. I have just had a player start 38 games and with an average rating of 7.18 in a promotion winning team, and weeks after the season ends he demands a transfer because I played him as right back (wing back) not right back (full back)

[Boroboss]

Does anyone else find the problem just goes away after a few months? If I try talk to the player I’d say there’s a 50/50 chance he will take it badly, request transfers etc but if I just decline to talk to him I might have some players wanting to discuss it, I just ignore them too. After half a season to a season and a couple more trophies in the bag they are generally happy to sign a new contract despite not playing more games or me having done a single thing to try sort out the unhappiness.

[AurioDK]

It´s also bugged, heavily so. Midfielders coming, already have 7 ... and he is asking for the midfield to be reinforced but he is actually at the same level as the others I already have. I end up with 10 midfielders and promiss kept ... I really wanted that guy because he was a set piece specialist. 

Next season my only 2 top targets demand for the midfield to be reinforced, can´t remove the demand and have to accept, tried to look for other defenders/strikers but couldn´t find any suitable for my Wrexham side. I signed both, a defender and a striker, the transfer window closes with me signing 2 midfielders, one I could really use and a prospect .... had no impact, promiss not kept.

Now I have 12 midfielders for two spots ....... and the two new arrivals want to leave.

[Etebaer]

Am 1.4.2020 um 00:30 schrieb FrazT:

The player happiness module is at best over-sensitive and at worst, flawed IMO..The squad's continual over reaction to decisions that you as manager make, particularly with regard to other player's playing time and contract is hard to understand.  I have found that if you are hard from day 1 and increase your discipline attribute, you can eventually say no regularly without too much impact, as long as the team is performing well on the pitch.

The obvious answer, however, is to promise nothing and that works as well.

Exactly - be hard from the beginning, promise as little as possible...plus have a good strong Captain at your side that does ease the players down so they wont be upset/calm down most of the time.

Strengthening the first team may involve specifically Keepers, Defenders, Midfileders and Strikers as mentioned in the conversation/promise and not only some generic player but it may not be clear via the promise screen that sometimes lacks information.

Edited February 6, 2021 by Etebaer