under review Transfer Budgets Aren't Reset by 04 Dec on Save Game with Disabled First Window

[merecat]

Playing as Liverpool with the first transfer window disabled. On working versions of FM, budgets are normally restored on either 01 Nov or 01 Dec; certainly no later than that. Current game is at 04 Dec. Clubs have been making the normal profits from transfer clauses, as I myself have, giving me £3m transfer funds. Normally on disable window, you can't even offer for unattached players, but at this stage of the game I can do this. I can also make transfer offers for players. However, I know LFC have an £18m starting budget and £100k wage budget. Neither of these have been released for my use (Should actually now be £21m). Further, when I look at current transfer budgets of other clubs I see they have not been restored by the game either.

I am going to carry on with the game anyway, but if no other clubs get budget by January, I'm going to have to start afresh, because I have moves I want to make. On previous versions of FM I have experienced this bug, and the budgets were never released until the next season.

I am going to play through until January to see if anything changes, but I have a bad feeling it won't. I've uploaded my save file called: Simon Barron - Liverpool.fm

[merecat]

I've reached Boxing Day and still no change to budgets etc. No announcement from board of new transfer and wage budgets as I would expect. Other clubs also have no additional budget.

Will update again when the transfer window opens, but not looking good.

[marktv88]

I have the exact same issue here.  Playing with Arsenal, I'm at 3rd January and still no budgets globally.  Will upload a save file.

[merecat]

OK, interesting developments. January 2nd has ticked around and SOME clubs seem to have had their budgets adjusted. Me at Liverpool, I have not been given anything and neither has anyone in the Premier League. HOWEVER, a look at the likes of Real Madrid, Munich, AC Milan, and PSG reveal that they have new budget to play with. Spain, Italy, and England are my playable leagues, with the top divisions in Holland, Germany, and France being View Only.

This is a really odd and frustrating bug, especially considering I've experienced this kind of thing on previous iterations of Football Manager, especially '20 and '19. Unbalances the whole game experience, but takes you hours of play to discover. I've no confidence that binning this save and starting again is even going to produce a save without the bug! Especially because no-one from SI Games has responded to this thread . . .

[Ben Kenney]

Thanks for the feedback. 

If you  have save games from around November time could you please upload to our cloud service and we will check this issue out. 

 Cheers,

Ben 

[merecat]

14 hours ago, Ben Kenney said:

Thanks for the feedback. 

If you  have save games from around November time could you please upload to our cloud service and we will check this issue out. 

 Cheers,

Ben 

Hi Ben!

I use weekly incremental saves, so all my saves will be from December, I'm afraid

[merecat]

22 hours ago, Ben Kenney said:

Thanks for the feedback. 

If you  have save games from around November time could you please upload to our cloud service and we will check this issue out. 

 Cheers,

Ben 

RIGHT! Something VERY strange is going on here. I have now reached 01 Feb 2021, which is transfer deadline day. During the beginning of January, frustrated at the lack of funds anywhere in the Premier League, I used the in-game editor to amend all transfer budgets to the levels I have seen on the web as being the correct starting budgets, including my own. During this process, around 10th January, I noticed at each club that - while the transfer budgets were wrong - each wage budget seemed to tally with the levels published on the web. ie, the wage budgets had at some point been increased in line with a lifting of the First Window Freeze, but not the transfer budgets.

I made a few deals, sold a couple of players, brought in a couple on loan. Ended up with £55m in the transfer kitty at the end of 31st January 2021 to spend on the last day. When we then enter 01 February 2021 Deadline Day, suddenly all the Premier League transfer budgets revert to the starting levels expected were I to just start the game normally with no First Window Disablement. ie, I no longer have £55m to spend, I now have just £18m on the last day of the winter window! But for the in-game editor, I'd be royally screwed here; suddenly robbed of £37m in transfer funds due to a glitch! I have uploaded the save file from game date 01 Feb 2021 (file name SJB-LFC-FebTransWin.fm) on which you will see clubs with very strangely round-number transfer kitties.

Clubs outside of the Premier League (and perhaps the rest of England, looking at the round figures in the Championship too!) are unaffected.

Doing my head in a bit, this.

[merecat]

I'd quite like to know if this has been addressed before I risk starting a new save with disabled transfer window. I can't see any mention of it in the 21.2 patch notes.

[merecat]

OK, so on another save that was started on a different system (MacOS not Windows like the save above) I've now reached February 22nd 2021, and have not altered anyone's transfer budgets or wage budgets with the in-game editor like on the save above. On this save, not one club has had their budgets released. It's like the finances on the game are being run by the Tories [drum roll].

[FM217129]

I have the same problem. Created 3 different saves, with 3 different teams, played to January 2021 and no transfer budgets have been reset. Wasted quite a few hours because there is no way to know whether this will happen until you reach January. Not willing to play again until the issue has been resolved...

[merecat]

On this second save of mine, it took until the end of the season for new budgets to be assigned; so it looks like the trigger to refresh budgets mid-season was missed altogether. Any word on a solution?

[FM217129]

No word on a solution, they’re waiting for a save game to be uploaded on this post, but I use incremental saves as well so don’t have any saves from November

[Ben Kenney]

Thanks for the feedback on this. 

The issue is logged with the development team who are looking into the issue. 

Cheers,

Ben 

[FM217129]

Excellent, hopefully there is a fix for this soon because I’m not playing till there is 😂

[FM217129]

@Ben KenneyAny word on a fix for this one yet? I have done a few test saves , and skipped ahead to January and no transfer funds made available in any of them. I tried La Liga, PL and a couple of the other top leagues as well...

[zindrinho]

Well this thread was a downer to stumble upon, just came across the same bug myself, disabled first transfer window and now I dont get any funds for the winter window.

But do I understand you guys correctly in that the next summer window again will be normal?

[FM217129]

@zindrinho Everything seems normal and resets itself by the summer window again, only appears to be the first winter window. I haven’t progressed to the second season winter window though to see if it has occurred again. Bums me out playing the save when I can make no signings, knowing that in previous saves with the same team I had been given quite a bit to strengthen the team. Hopefully there is a fix soon...

[zindrinho]

8 hours ago, FM217129 said:

@zindrinho  Hopefully there is a fix soon...

Yeah, I wouldn't really expect much until 21.3, I remember there being a problem with the disable first transfer window a few iterations back also, I dont remember that being fixed until a new instalment of FM came out.

It's a shame really, I've fallen in love with the disable first transfer window option, lets you play out the league as it is IRL and also makes it much easier to go faster forward in the beginning when you dont have to buy the best talents on day 1 before the AI finds them.

[Junkhead]

Realise I am late to the thread, but it's been linked elsewhere. However when you turn first window budgets off the game does two things;

1- stops transfers happening by not allowing you to "approach to sign"

2- sets all budgets to zero as if all money has just been spent.

 

Reading this thread, it feels like in January the game is doing the following;

1- allowing you to "approach to sign" players again

2- Not giving every club a January budget

If that's the case, I'm not sure this is an issue? The "prevent first window transfers" option isn't carrying over into January so there is no bug with that feature. It just appears to me that some clubs boards (probably those who are doing well) are opting not to free up "further" funds in January?

If you leave first year budgets available and spend all your money, the board won't necessarily give you more?

 

[merecat]

11 hours ago, Junkhead said:

Realise I am late to the thread, but it's been linked elsewhere. However when you turn first window budgets off the game does two things;

1- stops transfers happening by not allowing you to "approach to sign"

2- sets all budgets to zero as if all money has just been spent.

 

Reading this thread, it feels like in January the game is doing the following;

1- allowing you to "approach to sign" players again

2- Not giving every club a January budget

If that's the case, I'm not sure this is an issue? The "prevent first window transfers" option isn't carrying over into January so there is no bug with that feature. It just appears to me that some clubs boards (probably those who are doing well) are opting not to free up "further" funds in January?

If you leave first year budgets available and spend all your money, the board won't necessarily give you more?

 

Yes, it is certainly the case that the freeze on all teams' ability to approach players is lifted, I think around Dec 1st. Some clubs have additional budget here and there from existing transfer clauses and can use this to sign players from around 1st Dec. However, the statement "Not giving every club a January budget" is not accurate. It should read, "Not giving ANY club a January budget".

It is also correct to say that when the first window is disabled, all budgets start off zero'd, including wage budgets in terms of the additional available funds to work with. So, LFC might have an existing wage spend of 1.4m per week at the start of the game, and with disable first window, the available budget matches this - thus nothing to spend on wages. If you start the game normally, this budget is higher - let's say 1.6m per week (additional 200k per week to spend on acquisitions). What I would expect (as from previous games and basic common sense) is for these budgets (transfer and wage budgets) to be 'released' 1st Dec in line with the freeze on the ability to approach that has been mentioned above. This does not happen anywhere until after January 31st (on one save it was 1st Feb, on another, it was June). And it is not as you are speculating above, that it is based on a few clubs making the arbitrary choice to restrict funds based on performance (If anything, I've found that if you're doing well and the board has money, they tend to release MORE, not LESS: "It has not gone unnoticed that our form is excellent" etc). But more importantly, I've used the in-game editor to thoroughly research this issue and it is absolutely the case that no manageable club has either transfer or wage funds available until after the January window closes, but most often until summer of 2021, other than those small amounts raised from existing transfer clauses (previously sold players passing games played thresholds etc).

Having researched what's going on using the in-game editor across a couple of saves now I confirm that this IS an issue/bug. I don't believe the game is behaving as it should.

[Junkhead]

4 hours ago, merecat said:

Yes, it is certainly the case that the freeze on all teams' ability to approach players is lifted, I think around Dec 1st. Some clubs have additional budget here and there from existing transfer clauses and can use this to sign players from around 1st Dec. However, the statement "Not giving every club a January budget" is not accurate. It should read, "Not giving ANY club a January budget".

It is also correct to say that when the first window is disabled, all budgets start off zero'd, including wage budgets in terms of the additional available funds to work with. So, LFC might have an existing wage spend of 1.4m per week at the start of the game, and with disable first window, the available budget matches this - thus nothing to spend on wages. If you start the game normally, this budget is higher - let's say 1.6m per week (additional 200k per week to spend on acquisitions). What I would expect (as from previous games and basic common sense) is for these budgets (transfer and wage budgets) to be 'released' 1st Dec in line with the freeze on the ability to approach that has been mentioned above. This does not happen anywhere until after January 31st (on one save it was 1st Feb, on another, it was June). And it is not as you are speculating above, that it is based on a few clubs making the arbitrary choice to restrict funds based on performance (If anything, I've found that if you're doing well and the board has money, they tend to release MORE, not LESS: "It has not gone unnoticed that our form is excellent" etc). But more importantly, I've used the in-game editor to thoroughly research this issue and it is absolutely the case that no manageable club has either transfer or wage funds available until after the January window closes, but most often until summer of 2021, other than those small amounts raised from existing transfer clauses (previously sold players passing games played thresholds etc).

Having researched what's going on using the in-game editor across a couple of saves now I confirm that this IS an issue/bug. I don't believe the game is behaving as it should.

Fair enough, you've certainly spent more time looking into it than I have, hope you get your fix 

[merecat]

On 05/01/2021 at 17:37, Ben Kenney said:

Thanks for the feedback on this. 

The issue is logged with the development team who are looking into the issue. 

Cheers,

Ben 

Hi Ben - Please tell me that this issue has been addressed by the latest update. Every save I have, has the budgets f-ed up in the game. It's depressing.

[Julius Flusfeder]

Hi @merecat

The issue should be addressed for the 21.3 update - from new saves and any existing saves that with a current game date from before the January '21 window opening.

However, if you find any instances of the issue still occurring, please let us know and ideally upload a save game and we will investigate.

Cheers,

Julius

[merecat]

39 minutes ago, Julius Flusfeder said:

Hi @merecat

The issue should be addressed for the 21.3 update - from new saves and any existing saves that with a current game date from before the January '21 window opening.

However, if you find any instances of the issue still occurring, please let us know and ideally upload a save game and we will investigate.

Cheers,

Julius

So I have a current version of 21.3.0-1518378 - does that mean the Transfer Windows will now function properly on a new Save Game? If so, this is SUCH brilliant news!

[Julius Flusfeder]

22 minutes ago, merecat said:

So I have a current version of 21.3.0-1518378 - does that mean the Transfer Windows will now function properly on a new Save Game? If so, this is SUCH brilliant news!

Yes subsequent windows after the first one should return to normal levels. If you think they still look on the low side in January '21, do let us know