[U.S.A.] (Official) League Specific Issues

[KeegBCFC]

Just wondering if there were any significant fixes to the MLS in the latest update? None listed in the changelist 

[Mikkyk]

1 hour ago, KeegBCFC said:

Just wondering if there were any significant fixes to the MLS in the latest update? None listed in the changelist 

I'm really hoping they fix the salary cap issue, as wanted my first save to be an MLS one, but after testing it on each update I'm not going to bother testing on this one. Like you say nothing in changelist

[Platinum]

Is the MLS currently unplayable?

[shevigol]

7 hours ago, francis#17 said:

Is the MLS currently unplayable?

Maybe not unplayable. But we have a registration/ transfer window issue. And we have some salary cap issues. Both can be worked around but both very annoying.

They do not seem to have been fixed in the 21.2 update unfortunately.

@Sebastian Szlenkier - Are these issues currently being looked at?

Edited December 18, 2020 by shevigol

[Sebastian Szlenkier]

Both are being looked at, thank you very much. For the salary cap issue, we need to pinpoint the moment where AI teams suddenly end up with a too high cap. If you have any saves at the point at which the cap is breached by AI teams, please upload them to the SI Cloud Server. This will help us look into this issue. Thank you very much. 

[shevigol]

8 minutes ago, Sebastian Szlenkier said:

Both are being looked at, thank you very much. For the salary cap issue, we need to pinpoint the moment where AI teams suddenly end up with a too high cap. If you have any saves at the point at which the cap is breached by AI teams, please upload them to the SI Cloud Server. This will help us look into this issue. Thank you very much. 

Thanks a lot! As for the registration issue and transfer window errors. Do you know if this kind of fix would be save game compatible? Just wondering if there is any point in continuing my save.

[Sebastian Szlenkier]

A fix for this issue would not be save game compatible. However, it should only affect the two weeks where the window is still open after 1st September so you should be able to make signings and register players without any issue for the majority of the window. This would not affect the foreign transfer window at all, but we are still looking into this. Thank you.

[Platinum]

3 hours ago, shevigol said:

Maybe not unplayable. But we have a registration/ transfer window issue. And we have some salary cap issues. Both can be worked around but both very annoying.

They do not seem to have been fixed in the 21.2 update unfortunately.

@Sebastian Szlenkier - Are these issues currently being looked at?

Cheers, is their also an issue with academies/the draft?

[Sebastian Szlenkier]

On 13/11/2020 at 13:58, AlexTheTall said:

Can someone explain me why I play half the season in the month of March and April in 2022, it was the same in 2021... I fallow the MLS in real life... And for the Impact it never, never happens! I have games every 2 days... Come on now.

The spacing of fixtures should be better after the most recent update. This was caused by having to play many more fixtures in the league with both Austin and Charlotte in the league. As we don't know exactly how this will look in the future, we have done our best to create a sensible schedule. The most recent update (21.2.0) should have gone some way to address this. 

20 hours ago, galacticmanhammer said:

I was running into the same problem

This should be better with a less congested fixture schedule following the 21.1.0 update. 

 

[Aubibeen69]

The spacing of fixtures has been a problem for many years... It was awful on FM 2020. On FM 21, I played one season with Austin and everything was fine. 

About the salary cap: I am afraid that the teams do not have enough GAM at the beginning, espaciallly because all contrats have full impact on the salary cap. So there are many very good players to be waived in February/March. It looks better during season 2 or 3.

Edited December 18, 2020 by Aubibeen69

[Sebastian Szlenkier]

On 17/12/2020 at 04:39, Jawni said:

I just uploaded a file called "MLS Cup Milestone Bug.fm"

It's saved a couple of days before my second MLS Cup final

Thanks, this has been reproduced and is under review.

[shevigol]

8 hours ago, Sebastian Szlenkier said:

A fix for this issue would not be save game compatible. However, it should only affect the two weeks where the window is still open after 1st September so you should be able to make signings and register players without any issue for the majority of the window. This would not affect the foreign transfer window at all, but we are still looking into this. Thank you.

Thanks, I guess I'll just have to avoid signing players for those two weeks then

[shevigol]

6 hours ago, francis#17 said:

Cheers, is their also an issue with academies/the draft?

Not that I have found. Sure we don't have any reserve team leagues but I guess that won't change for this year?

[shevigol]

On 22/11/2020 at 17:40, Aljarov said:

I was just testing this actually and have logged it. Two main issues - one they don't get any games, which is its own problem, but it's a developmental dead-end for youngsters and especially those out the academy.

Thanks

Any news about this @Aljarov? Just got my New York City FC II and it totally ruins everything. They don't play any matches. Some of my players are automatically moved to the II-team. Everyone that I make available for the II-team will stay there forever AND still be part of my first team. It's impossible to remove them from the II-team. Something is very wrong with these II-teams in the MLS and it kind of ruins the fun of playing.

Edited December 20, 2020 by shevigol

[Al Clark]

23 hours ago, shevigol said:

I'm in the second season now and have just receive my B-team with New York City FC. Problem is that a couple of players gets moved to the b-team automatically . I move them to the first team but the next day they are back in the b-team. Am I missing something or what is going on? Actually they are both in the first team and the b-team, even though I've made them unavailable for the b-team

Please upload your save and @Sebastian Szlenkier can log it.

I know the fact the B team doesn't play any games is logged, which is as much as I can do (I'm the MLS researcher - I don't code, or have any control over MLS code other than to make requests).

[Aubibeen69]

Re-Entry Draft 2021, Sebastian Lledget is picked twice !

 

Edited December 23, 2020 by Aubibeen69

[Aubibeen69]

Charlotte has built up a very good team... only with International player until the expansion draft... Won't be easy to register...

 

[Chad Beaulieu]

Did the latest update (21.2) solve any of the MLS league specific issues addressed in this thread. 
 

The list of fixes does not suggest any MLS probkems fixed but I could be wrong. 

[shevigol]

15 minutes ago, Chad Beaulieu said:

Did the latest update (21.2) solve any of the MLS league specific issues addressed in this thread. 
 

The list of fixes does not suggest any MLS probkems fixed but I could be wrong. 

I’m afraid it did not fix most of the recent issues mentioned here. It did however introduce a new issue so you cannot remove players from your II-team since 21.2. That issue basically makes MLS unplayable right now.

Still hoping this will be fixed before the holidays but I guess it seems unlikely at this point.

[Aubibeen69]

In 2014, the winter update completely ruined the MLS experience. I hope it won't be the case this year...

Both issues I mentioned today occurred with the 21.2 version.

[BuckSaddler]

Every season is the same issues. Nobody tests it before release and there's always pages upon pages of feedback that goes ignored. 

* Big reputation teams (anything over 6000) still will waive or sell the best players in the league in desperation to fix the Salary Cap. Look at the transfer list. It's a fire sale of good league players from MLS, because it's bugged when you start a new game. Why can't you see this? Every year.... Come on! 

* Big reputation teams will still bizarrely sign players, using their GAM or TAM, then waive them a few weeks later. Every season we experience this exact SAME issue without a fix. Every year it's posted. Every year completely ignored.  

* Big reputation teams still do not fill their squads because of issues above with reputation and AI. The reputation is too high for teams to consider signing ability ranges below 105-110. So teams will opt for less backup goalkeepers or defenders. Meaning they sometimes struggle to even have a bench for matches. Again. Year after year of the same thing.

* There's still issues with B teams, where teams would rather struggle to have 20 players in their roster, preferring to have no backup players and leave them in the B teams. It's easy to win the league when you've handicapped the best teams to a reduced squad size.

* The AI is still terrible. Every year we tell you this. It's located in the "additional helper file" in the editor that says "Major League Soccer". If you allowed access to this, perhaps people like myself could attempt to fix it. (Why not allow editors access to this?) Whatever is in this file is what is destroying the league for players. It's why you get pages upon pages on people repeating the same issues, every year.

* MLS clubs do not sign any players for value outside of designated player contracts. It's as if it's not the rules of the MLS in FM compared to real life. Every year we see players transfer into the league in real life. Every year in FM it's impossible. 

*Starting as Miami, you are unable to even add the 27 players to the roster that you have at the start of the game because you cannot pay down the contracts. Something seems off by a few million. There's no fix. Miami just get worse. Like everyone else does. 

 

==========================================================================================

 

For others who struggle the best thing to do is just accept the league will immediately get worse, due to Football Managers editing code.

* Lower the reputation of every club by about 500 and this will help teams to have a roster closer to 30 players rather than 20.

* Select every club in the league and under finances add extra targeted allocation money to 5000000. This will help clubs not sign and waive players too, as they are able to accommodate them onto the salary cap.

* Lower the weekly salary value under USA nation so lesser quality players take up less cap space.

* Lower the transfer value under the USA nation for more inter-league transfers.

Then purchase the editor to continuously monitor the transfer across the leagues and spend your career playing Transfer and editing God for every club in the league and spend about 6 times as long as you should do playing this league.

============================================================================================

 

Alternatively you can just delete the league and recreate a new one with European style rules because anything with a cap, or Major League Soccer files attached in place is causes all sorts of AI issues.

Although all the parity disappears from the the league it's the only way to have a league that improves over time, rather than immediately getting worse like Football Manager's version of the MLS.

Unfortunately the drafts, salary caps, designated players and academies will vanish but there's a far better transfer system that takes place. 

Also, I would advise NOT to place a salary cap. Clubs will spend whatever they can on salaries if they have the space as the AI is not smart enough to acknowledge over paying.

Edited December 26, 2020 by BuckSaddler

[Aubibeen69]

@BuckSaddler 

Do you know if a good update already exists for the MLS ? 

So far, the MLS looks to be acceptable. The first year is awful but the team building improves in 2022 thanks to the annual allotment of GAM. I mean, this is true with my first save with Austin, before the update 21.2.

[KeegBCFC]

On 26/12/2020 at 16:15, BuckSaddler said:

Every season is the same issues. Nobody tests it before release and there's always pages upon pages of feedback that goes ignored. 

* Big reputation teams (anything over 6000) still will waive or sell the best players in the league in desperation to fix the Salary Cap. Look at the transfer list. It's a fire sale of good league players from MLS, because it's bugged when you start a new game. Why can't you see this? Every year.... Come on! 

* Big reputation teams will still bizarrely sign players, using their GAM or TAM, then waive them a few weeks later. Every season we experience this exact SAME issue without a fix. Every year it's posted. Every year completely ignored.  

* Big reputation teams still do not fill their squads because of issues above with reputation and AI. The reputation is too high for teams to consider signing ability ranges below 105-110. So teams will opt for less backup goalkeepers or defenders. Meaning they sometimes struggle to even have a bench for matches. Again. Year after year of the same thing.

* There's still issues with B teams, where teams would rather struggle to have 20 players in their roster, preferring to have no backup players and leave them in the B teams. It's easy to win the league when you've handicapped the best teams to a reduced squad size.

* The AI is still terrible. Every year we tell you this. It's located in the "additional helper file" in the editor that says "Major League Soccer". If you allowed access to this, perhaps people like myself could attempt to fix it. (Why not allow editors access to this?) Whatever is in this file is what is destroying the league for players. It's why you get pages upon pages on people repeating the same issues, every year.

* MLS clubs do not sign any players for value outside of designated player contracts. It's as if it's not the rules of the MLS in FM compared to real life. Every year we see players transfer into the league in real life. Every year in FM it's impossible. 

*Starting as Miami, you are unable to even add the 27 players to the roster that you have at the start of the game because you cannot pay down the contracts. Something seems off by a few million. There's no fix. Miami just get worse. Like everyone else does. 

 

==========================================================================================

 

For others who struggle the best thing to do is just accept the league will immediately get worse, due to Football Managers editing code.

* Lower the reputation of every club by about 500 and this will help teams to have a roster closer to 30 players rather than 20.

* Select every club in the league and under finances add extra targeted allocation money to 5000000. This will help clubs not sign and waive players too, as they are able to accommodate them onto the salary cap.

* Lower the weekly salary value under USA nation so lesser quality players take up less cap space.

* Lower the transfer value under the USA nation for more inter-league transfers.

Then purchase the editor to continuously monitor the transfer across the leagues and spend your career playing Transfer and editing God for every club in the league and spend about 6 times as long as you should do playing this league.

============================================================================================

 

Alternatively you can just delete the league and recreate a new one with European style rules because anything with a cap, or Major League Soccer files attached in place is causes all sorts of AI issues.

Although all the parity disappears from the the league it's the only way to have a league that improves over time, rather than immediately getting worse like Football Manager's version of the MLS.

Unfortunately the drafts, salary caps, designated players and academies will vanish but there's a far better transfer system that takes place. 

Also, I would advise NOT to place a salary cap. Clubs will spend whatever they can on salaries if they have the space as the AI is not smart enough to acknowledge over paying.

THIS THIS THIS. Players of the game to have to start messing around with clubs reputation etc to just get 2 seasons of playable MLS (and then it starts to go downhill), and this doesn't set any alarm bells ringing at SI?? Unfortunately this year there seems to be more issues than ever with Europe, ME, UI etc so the MLS will have to go another year being a steaming pile of dung. 

[Style]

any update about fix to the salary cap registration bug ? 

[shevigol]

9 hours ago, Style said:

any update about fix to the salary cap registration bug ? 

No, it’s been quiet about it. No word on when we will have a fix for the II-team bug either that heavily impacts the MLS since we cannot use the proposed workaround for it.

[VasMik13]

Will you fix history of North American competitions? Maybe a little update.

[iownyou]

I don’t play the MLS but I’ve noticed a significant bug.

MLS teams signing players then releasing them straight away. Waiver?

I sold Austin Fc Mark Beevers (im Peterborough) and a few weeks later I noticed he was a free agent. I’ve further noticed this a few times with other clubs and players. I then can’t bring myself to sign these players as it feels like cheating. 

[Haiku]

I was thinking about starting a MLS safe, guess I will hold off.

[KeegBCFC]

3 hours ago, iownyou said:

I don’t play the MLS but I’ve noticed a significant bug.

MLS teams signing players then releasing them straight away. Waiver?

I sold Austin Fc Mark Beevers (im Peterborough) and a few weeks later I noticed he was a free agent. I’ve further noticed this a few times with other clubs and players. I then can’t bring myself to sign these players as it feels like cheating. 

This has been happening for years, and leaves MLS clubs with rosters of 10-16 players, making them play greyed out players.

[shevigol]

3 hours ago, Haiku said:

I was thinking about starting a MLS safe, guess I will hold off.

You should hold off. Hoping the issues gets fixed soon so that I can continue my save. Quite a fun league to play in actually and I did enjoy it very much until the issue with my II-team that patch 21.2 introduced.

[iownyou]

4 hours ago, KeegBCFC said:

This has been happening for years, and leaves MLS clubs with rosters of 10-16 players, making them play greyed out players.

Wow, this is the first year I fully loaded the MLS (I had planned to play it so wanted to see how it ran first) normally I just load players from it so probably why I didn’t see it but yeah that’s a pretty big and glaring bug that should be sorted. 

[nickname1010]

Welp, spent $50 or so to buy first FM game in my life to play my local team in US.

After spending 10 hrs or so and getting familiar with my team, I am facing this notorious salary cap issue that other guys in this thread mentioned. 

 

I cannot make any further progress in the game because my player roster cannot be confirmed because of this arbitrary ghost salary that gets counted toward salary cap.

Sad thing is that this same problem seems to have lasted in every FM series since years ago?

 

Return window is closed (Steam/2hrs) and I cannot return the game. What a bummer.

 

[Haiku]

Could any of you please check whether the issues discussed earlier in this thread are addressed with the latest update? I just don't have the time to check it myself right now, thanks! 

[Style]

is there any walkaround to the cap salary registration bug ? 

[Haiku]

One notable issue I have is club vision that in my opinion is not relevant with MLS. If you win the league or come close to winning it, the board expects from you to win it every season from now on. It's just not how this competition works. It is highly competitive and balanced due to the specific rules. I think board expectations shouldn't go much further than reaching the playoffs, which essentially is a challenge to win the cup. Also winning the cup is not the same experience as winning a regular European football league. Playoffs have cup rules, which means you can miss out with one bad day at the office (the final). I'm not sure how serious the board is with their requirements, but I guess it will be very difficult for the human manager to build a prolonged managerial career at one club, given the unrealistically high expectations he's facing season after season.

[Mars_Blackmon]

13 hours ago, Haiku said:

Could any of you please check whether the issues discussed earlier in this thread are addressed with the latest update? I just don't have the time to check it myself right now, thanks! 

I don’t think anyone have the time because history says no...

[shevigol]

More registration errors in the MLS. If I sign players for next season most of them will join on the 9/2. This creates lots of issues when trying to register players for the CONCACAF Champions League as this has to be done on the 1/2. Now I cannot use any of the players I signed for these fixtures. I did sign 7 players so I basically screwed.

[shevigol]

18 minutes ago, shevigol said:

More registration errors in the MLS. If I sign players for next season most of them will join on the 9/2. This creates lots of issues when trying to register players for the CONCACAF Champions League as this has to be done on the 1/2. Now I cannot use any of the players I signed for these fixtures. I did sign 7 players so I basically screwed.

So for the second leg I could suddenly register the players. Very strange. It seems they could not be registered on the same day as the first leg match.

[nickname1010]

Here is a video example where I was trying to add $95,000p/a salary player to my registration, but game somehow adds $440,000p to my salary cap.

 

Edited January 8, 2021 by nickname1010

[Haiku]

1 hour ago, nickname1010 said:

Here is a video example where I was trying to add $95,000p/a salary player to my registration, but game somehow adds $440,000p to my salary cap.

 

Have you tried after the patch we received yesterday?

[KeegBCFC]

On 08/01/2021 at 00:06, Haiku said:

Could any of you please check whether the issues discussed earlier in this thread are addressed with the latest update? I just don't have the time to check it myself right now, thanks! 

No need to check, the answer is no. The issues won't be fixed until at least FM24, if ever.

[Lurking Manager]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but if you loan out an international player, shouldn't it free up an international spot? I remember it working in FM19 (skipped FM20).

[nickname1010]

On 08/01/2021 at 15:47, Haiku said:

Have you tried after the patch we received yesterday?

Yes, this happened after the latest patch. 21.2.2.

However, I kinda figured out why. 

I was trying to add 5th Senior Minimum Salary (SMS) player to the roster. (MLS only allows 4 SMS players, and they are categorized as Supplemental roster player, so their salary don't count towards Salary cap budget.)

However, as soon as I attempt to add 5th SMS (which isn't allowed per MLS rules), all 5 players' salary starts getting counted towards Salary cap budget, which is why you see huge jump in salary budget use. 

However, because none of the above is very clearly shown in the game (e.g. If it clearly shows I am adding 5th SMS player which is not allowed, I would have figured out it much better.), most users will likely be confused like me and have bad user experience.

If FM2022 can add another line showing # of SMS players that I have in my roster, that would be really helpful.

 

[nickname1010]

Can anyone from SIGames at least explain why there is a huge gap between two numbers that I believe should be same?

My guess is that

1. number on the right (from info mark) only counts salary

2. while number on the left counts salary + loyalty bonus. 

Are above statements true? 

If that is the case, I think info mark table at least should have a additional row that shows how much of royalty bonus amount are getting added to salary cap budget.

 

Edited January 10, 2021 by nickname1010

[Haiku]

Does it have something to do with Injured players? In the tool tip injured players are excluded from the salary cap, perhaps on the Registration sheet they are not exempt?

[nickname1010]

Is SIGames reading this thread? When you post a bug to general discussion or other forums, they redirect users to this thread. However, there is no updates or anything in this thread from SIGames?

 

Here is another bug where removing a player who is receiving Senior Minimum Salary does not update '10 Off-Budget Players', but it gets updated when you clear roster and add from scratch.

 

 

[bielsadidnothingwrong]

what a bummer.

[Haiku]

5 hours ago, nickname1010 said:

Is SIGames reading this thread? When you post a bug to general discussion or other forums, they redirect users to this thread. However, there is no updates or anything in this thread from SIGames?

 

Here is another bug where removing a player who is receiving Senior Minimum Salary does not update '10 Off-Budget Players', but it gets updated when you clear roster and add from scratch.

 

 

Hey, I'm not an expert with MLS rules, but I think you're wrong here. As seen in your video, the player you want to register is on Senior Minimum contract and is non-homeground. You already have 4 registered non-reserve and non-homegroun off-budget players, so he can't be registered as such and his salary counts towards the cap. When you clear the roster he can be registered because the quota is empty.

[nickname1010]

15 hours ago, Haiku said:

Hey, I'm not an expert with MLS rules, but I think you're wrong here. As seen in your video, the player you want to register is on Senior Minimum contract and is non-homeground. You already have 4 registered non-reserve and non-homegroun off-budget players, so he can't be registered as such and his salary counts towards the cap. When you clear the roster he can be registered because the quota is empty.

You are right. I had more than allowed number of senior minimum salary players. I have encountered so many irregularities with MLS team registration, so I was very frustrated with what I had dealt with, so I was asking for help. Not to mention I had to resign my position 3 times!! giving up my progress with the team mid-season just because I was stuck in limbo state where I couldn't register player due to salary cap issue & the game doesn't let you proceed unless you complete the team registration.

 

Is below my misunderstanding as well? I hired a new player as a regular senior player (Not designated player) with $151k/a salary on April/27/2023. The thing is that the player was injured at the time of transfer. As soon as that transfer got completed, my registration is messed up again. (Player injury seems to mess up roster based on my experience)

1. The player's salary is $151k/a, but it is showing salary cap impact of $744k/a ?? (first screenshot)

2. The player's contract page shows the same number, $151k salary but $744k salary cap impact. I could potentially spend $700k to reduce its salary cap impact, but I don't want to because I shouldn't need to do that in the first place. (second screenshot)

3. I deselected everyone in roster, but salary cap impact still shows $4.95M ??. I cannot safely update registration or roster, and worse, if I don't have any general allocation money, I wouldn't have been able to reduce salary cap and my save would have been ruined again, and I will have to resign my position for the 4th time. (third screenshot)

 

How can I clean reset this problematic player's salary cap impact? I don't believe MLS has a rule where all newly transferred players will have salary cap impact of $744k/a, which should only happen to DP.

Edited January 13, 2021 by nickname1010

[Freddie Sands]

On 10/01/2021 at 05:43, nickname1010 said:

Can anyone from SIGames at least explain why there is a huge gap between two numbers that I believe should be same?

My guess is that

1. number on the right (from info mark) only counts salary

2. while number on the left counts salary + loyalty bonus. 

Are above statements true? 

If that is the case, I think info mark table at least should have a additional row that shows how much of royalty bonus amount are getting added to salary cap budget.

Hi there - to clarify, this is a known issue currently under review (in theory those two numbers should always be the same), as well as the separate issue noted previously where club's salary cap spend is being bumped up after registration, leading to situations where the user cannot register a squad.

On 13/01/2021 at 01:11, nickname1010 said:

Is below my misunderstanding as well? I hired a new player as a regular senior player (Not designated player) with $151k/a salary on April/27/2023. The thing is that the player was injured at the time of transfer. As soon as that transfer got completed, my registration is messed up again. (Player injury seems to mess up roster based on my experience)

1. The player's salary is $151k/a, but it is showing salary cap impact of $744k/a ?? (first screenshot)

2. The player's contract page shows the same number, $151k salary but $744k salary cap impact. I could potentially spend $700k to reduce its salary cap impact, but I don't want to because I shouldn't need to do that in the first place. (second screenshot)

3. I deselected everyone in roster, but salary cap impact still shows $4.95M ??. I cannot safely update registration or roster, and worse, if I don't have any general allocation money, I wouldn't have been able to reduce salary cap and my save would have been ruined again, and I will have to resign my position for the 4th time. (third screenshot)

How can I clean reset this problematic player's salary cap impact? I don't believe MLS has a rule where all newly transferred players will have salary cap impact of $744k/a, which should only happen to DP.

Regarding the salary cap impact of the $151k p/a player, any transfers costs divided by the length of the contract in years are added to the salary cap impact of said player. Would the transfer fee/agent fee/etc account for this additional $593k p/a impact?

Regarding the SCI showing $4.95M if it is after the roster guarantee date then players who have already been registered with Guaranteed Contracts will still count towards the salary cap after being waived. That said, the aforementioned bug with the total salary cap impact jumping up after registration may still be having an effect here.