Been away for 13 years... What's new?

[Make me get fast]

Hey guys, I've not played a new version of FM since 2007 and 2008 (apart from a brief look at FM14 I think), I played everything from CM Italy in the mid 90's, through to 2007/08; but got stuck there for ages, as I had some mamouth career games, world-wide journey man style, for 70 years or so. Since then I've never really had a good enough system to handle the newer versions; and travel/running/house-buying got in the way.

Anyway, I'm about to take the plunge and buy a desktop that can handle 2020, and get back up to date; and was hoping to get some advice on a whole mix of questions? I know some of these are technical and some as gameplay, but hopefully it's ok to lump all together?

1. What are the biggest differences between the game now, and how it was around 2007/08? Huge question to ask obviously; but be great to hear from long term players on how it's developed.

2. I'm looking at a Ryzen 9 3900x if I can stretch to it, would that be sufficient to run a high number of nations and league? How about a Ryzen 6 3600x? Say with 16GB of fast RAM in each setup.

3. What level of graphics card is needed to play the 3D engine on full detail at a good rate? My only gaming will be FM and possibly CS:GO, will a mid range £150-£200 card do the job, or do I need to go high end? I'd be inclined to save the money, go for a lower/mid range card, and spend more on the processor; best option?

4. How does the adding and removing leagues work? Can you also add/remove whole nations, and from new continents? Are there any downsides to adding a league say 10yrs in?

5. Is the graphics scene still active? I always used to like to have club badges and kits for all teams - are there more now as licenced defaults, or do most people use 3rd party files?

6. Are there any setup tips for someone looking for a deep journeyman game, starting at the bottom? I'm interested in keeping things balanced in to the future, and I like to see long term variation of how the league's develop

7. Are there any new league's in the game now? Am I right in thinking people now create other countries league's that are not there by default? How on earth does that work with continental qualifying etc?

[XaW]

1. 1. A lot! The ME is totally different, they whole design, ME models are 3D rather than 2D, scouting is revamped, training the same, medical centre, scouting is different. Pretty much everything will be different and new, but still recognisable. 
2. I think that would be able to run quite big saves, but can't say for certain. Ask in the "New pc"-thread.
3. Same as the question above.
4. You can add and remove leagues on the fly. Of course when you add something it won't be added until the country starts a new season in the "rollover day" (when the table sets to 0). The only downside I know is that the teams in that league might be filled with randomised players if they have too few.
5. A lots around, but we are not allowed to discuss circumventing the licencing here, so you have to ask Google. I don't remember what was in the game back then, so can't say if there is any changes to officially licenced leagues.
6. Not my bag of tea, but I assume the base setup would be much the same as before except you can add leagues on the fly.
7. I don't remember what was back then, but the only recent change to leagues is the 2nd tier in Wales as far as I can remember. But yes, you can add custom leagues, but this MUST be done when you create the game, you cannot add custom files as added leagues on the fly. If you find a file that was created well (and not someone who haphazardly threw something together, as both as available around), then everything should work as normal for continental cups and such. Some simply add countries not playable and the continental qualifying don't change at all. Others really revamp the whole system though leagues and qualifications and everything. The only solid advise there is create a test game and holiday for a few seasons and see if anything breaks before using the files a save you intend to spend a lot of time on. It's really painful when you are 3 seasons in and the league stops resetting because the editor screwed something up.

[Utah_CUtiger]

Similar to me. The last version I played was FM 2010. I was quite content with that version and I had a long term save in the year 2035 that I loved with how dynamic the leagues were and got to know the regens around the world and created stories in my head etc.

However I started to watch some youtube FM2020 experiment videos and the amount of new bells and whistles were too much for me to ignore and I finally got an upgrade after 10 years.

I am still getting used to it. I am am zooming through the first several years because I actually prefer going deep into it and playing when it's all regens. But I am enjoying it. I am on year 10 of my current save and I am not seeing a ton of variation yet... I'm hoping things change soon as real life players retire.

[Guest]

Training is not the same. From FM19 has been changed a lot.

[craigcwwe]

A hell of a lot has changed in that time!

[Brother Ben]

2 - Purely for FM for most people Intel processors are better due to raw single thread performance.  For everything else though The 9 3900x is a beast.

3 - From my own perspective I run the 3D on high and I only have a GTX 760 2Gb so in my opinion there are savings to be had there definitely but obviously a high end card would future proof you

Check out the benchmarking thread for more info on how the processors perform

 

[yolixeya]

4. Another possible downside is that when you add the league the clubs might get only 2-3 players when it is youth intake rather then 10-15. I don't know if that is the case on FM20 but on FM19 I loaded Serie A as a view only (as I didn't want to go there first) but later changed as playable and all the clubs were getting 2-3 players exept the club I was managing.

[Svenc]

11 hours ago, craigcwwe said:

A hell of a lot has changed in that time!

War. War never changes.  

https://www.neoseeker.com/forums/38178/t1176979-just-score/
https://steamcommunity.com/app/1100600/discussions/0/2252308752469941843/

[craigcwwe]

52 minutes ago, Svenc said:

War. War never changes.  

https://www.neoseeker.com/forums/38178/t1176979-just-score/
https://steamcommunity.com/app/1100600/discussions/0/2252308752469941843/

[Brother Ben]

1 hour ago, Svenc said:

War. War never changes.  

https://www.neoseeker.com/forums/38178/t1176979-just-score/
https://steamcommunity.com/app/1100600/discussions/0/2252308752469941843/

It's an age old tale 

Imagine if they made the game harder like some are advocating. Meltdown!

[noikeee]

The 2 main differences for me are:

A) the game has become much much harder in terms of tactics (match engine). There's still ways to outperform the AI, but you might find yourself spending a couple of seasons tweaking tactics until you find something that seems to work fine for 10 matches... Then it's suddenly gone (because you're now up against the AI setting itself slightly different against you, or your players are now overconfident or overworked physically etc etc). Or having something that worked for you for seasons as you climb up the leagues, suddenly stop working as you become a big club and teams now play much more defensively against you. Or something that works in a certain country isn't quite as good in another as managers play differently and available players are also of a different mould (for example you'll find a more technical kind of game in Spain, a more defensive game in Italy, a very high pressing game by almost every AI manager in Germany etc) 

B) there's an absolute shitton more options, buttons to press and screens to navigate. It can become overwhelming at first and it put away a lot of people from the game. As you get used to it and get more comfortable with it, you'll find a lot of it can be ignored or delegated to your assistant manager. You don't really need to answer boring press conferences, or tweak every day training, or cuddle your players unless you really want to. So long term careers are definitely still possible (check out the FM career updates forum, lots of us are doing it). But, perhaps you might only be able to play 20 seasons in the time it used to take you to play 70.

As for specs. The specs you're looking at should be more than good enough. I've been using a 7 year old laptop and it's done me fine up until now although it does have a i7 CPU. I just ordered a Ryzen 5 3600 though, I'm expecting it to be a blast. You're looking at even quicker specs. The graphics card, at that range it's probably overkill for FM. FM doesn't really ask for much from a graphics card. But, if you play other games, you really do want to invest on a good graphics card. Personally I've gone for a higher range because I want to play some racing simulators which are way way more demanding in terms of graphics. If I was building a PC exclusively for FM I wouldn't have bothered. 

[petertr]

I played every CM game, and for no particular reason, I tried the original FM game (05?) and didn't get away with it straight away, and just didn't bother playing them again.

Until a month or so ago when SI did the free play on Steam.  I'm now utterly addicted once again.

 

Play a quick season, learn the basics, then either quit and restart, or accept it as the learning curve.  You'll figure it out, mostly.  Some stuff is still smoke and mirrors though, which can be annoying