Football Manager 2021 Official Feedback Thread

[SebastianRO]

Just now, RinusFM said:

Is it possible or a tip to create a new news-event about the regen/intake bug? To inform people and players to put their saves on hold or/and not to start new longterm saves. Just some damage-control. 

What bug are you refering to mate ?

[Jimbokav1971]

On 28/11/2020 at 22:35, Jimbokav1971 said:

My initial feedback was really positive and I think the match engine is great, but after a significant amount of playing I'm less impressed. 

I haven't encountered a single "game-breaking" bug, but I have encountered loads of little smaller bugs and despite reporting them, even the really simple basic ones, (such as nicknames having to be written from scratch rather than starting with the existing name or nickname as has been done for ages), still haven't been resolved. In fact, a lot of the bugs that I reported, and uploaded saves for, haven't even had a reply. I keep reporting and reporting, but to be honest I feel like I'm wasting my time. 

You can't delegate anything reliably to anyone, (for fear of it not being done), so unless you want to micro-manage every aspect of game-play, (I don't), then the game doesn't really work for me. 

I can't delegate to the Chairman to being in a DoF, (because he doesn't do it). 

When I manually bring in a DoF and delegate to him the hiring and firing and negotiation of staff contracts he doesn't do it. 

I start my 2nd season and lose the 1st 2 games because the Ass Man hasn't arranged any friendlies because he is no longer at the club because the DoF didn't bother to try and negotiate his contract and let him leave on a free and then didn't recruit a replacement after he left. 

I takeover responsibility for all individual training but although I can impact the additional focus for U18 squad players I can't impact on their PPM's. I could delegate that but nothing else that I delegate is getting done so the chances are this will also not get done. 

I can't delegate contract negotiations for players. 

You can't get a DoF to buy and sell players. 

The XG system might look great and sound great, but the numbers just don't add up. It's either completely made up or the incorrect values are being shown. 

It's strange. It seems like there has been a significant amount of attention placed on the ME, (and that's great), but the game is more than the match engine and the UI seems awful in comparison. 

There was an upgrade today that I have only just noticed and installed so will look again tomorrow, but really haven't enjoyed it over the last couple of days.

Finding and reporting bugs is great and while I appreciate that a lot of the stuff that is annoying me is deemed largely "cosmetic" and is much less important than ME or game-breaking bugs, it's hard to keep coming back every day to report another bug when you know that absolutely nothing that you have reported has been fixed yet, (and yeah I know I probably need to show some more patience), but for the 1st time in ages this feels a little slap-dash. UI issues should be easier to fix than ME mixes and I understand that there are different teams operating on different areas like this, so I'm not really sure why there are so many UI issues which has historically been a strength. 

There needs to be some balance in improvement in ME and the UI making the game.... able to do what the game is meant to do. 

I've started a new save in Gibraltar and for some reason the game isn't telling me who is and isn't available. The game is letting me submit the matchday squad and only when I have to register the players after I have submitted the squad is there a problem. I then can neither progress forward nor go back and re-select the squad. The only way to progress the game is to back out and then holiday the game. I have to do this for all games now, domestic & European. This is getting beyond a joke now.

[Jimbokav1971]

I've just stopped my 3rd FM21 save and probably won't be starting another until a significant patch is released. 

The last save was on the Official Gibraltar database and not for the 1st time it has become completely unplayable where the only way to progress through a game day is to go on holiday. 

I really love the CM/FM series of games and have spent a ridiculous amount of time playing them, but I can't play FM21 anymore. While the ME is great, the game itself is bugged so significantly in so many areas as to make a long-term save just about impossible. 

FM21 is the most bugged issue since CM4, (which was awful), and I say that as someone who has praised the last few issues highly and have played long-terms saves continued on from the demo. This game is not structurally sound and long-term games are not realistic right now. 

I honestly don't know what to do with myself without FM. 

[Double Indemnity]

3 hours ago, wicksyFM said:

 

Yes it is. SI say that the fix is a top priority. Would really like to know if a fix is save game compatible.

Oof. Hope a hotfix is coming soon, but I'll have to put aside my save for now.

[StevehFC]

1 hour ago, Double Indemnity said:

Oof. Hope a hotfix is coming soon, but I'll have to put aside my save for now.

That and the work permit issues has made me delete my save for now. The ME is great but these issues have put me off altogether playing the game. 

I hope it can be fixed in the next major winter patch. 

[Sterling]

Well after going back to FM20 during the beta because I'm not a fan of the new match UI I returned to FM21 on full release to give it another go and I'm now 157 hours in.

Short story is, I quite like the new match engine and that has somewhat overcome the downside that is the new match UI. 

I've been able to accept the matchUI for what it is, most of the information is there and I've been able to adapt how I watch matches, when info becomes available and how to access it otherwise. The amount of traversing the screen from left to right with the mouse on an ultrawide in the match UI is horrendous.

I  basically watch the matches with all the panels hidden, the player panel at the bottom just takes up too much screen 'real estate', but that does mean when i have to make changes or shouts I pause the match go through the rigmoral of traversing the screen and clicking  to open panels or make changes, its a whole lot of traversing and clicking to first open then confirm and then hide panels again, its all just clunky and tiresome.

I really would like shortcuts to open and close the panels and tablet rather than have to traverse the screen with the mouse and click.

As for the match engine, its plays pretty nicely but does feel a little easy, it does feel like penalties come a little too often and conceding from crazy pin point bullet like longshots from way out after my team have dominated a match do seem to be a bit too common.  I do think the lighting on the new match engine is a little off, shadows, brightness and pitch colours are just not right.

I did miss the role suitability circles initially but it does feel like they are now not needed, the match engine doesn't seem to be anywhere near as critical on playing players 'out of position' as previous years.

I really would also like to see the commentary bar text returned to the same size as previous years, the commentary text now is just too small and doesn't seem to scale with the UI.

I've also switched to the Dark Skin which quite surprisingly has made the transition from FM20 a lot easier and familiar, I'm not sure what it is about the purple skin, whether its harshness of the bright white backgrounds or just the colour in general. I really miss the more pronounced team colours across the top bar tho.

I don't mind the new team talk/press conference screens, the text is maybe a little to small but otherwise I've become used to them now.

The processing and saving speed is fabulous.

[Christmas]

This fix wont help everyone but - I was one of the people complaining about matchday lag. My 144h monitor was capped at 60hz in NVIDIA settings. I fixed it and.....wow

[Christmas]

18 minutes ago, Christmas said:

This fix wont help everyone but - I was one of the people complaining about matchday lag. My 144h monitor was capped at 60hz in NVIDIA settings. I fixed it and.....wow

Hmmm not a pure fix. I still get bad strutter when alt+tab into and from the game screen, continues for 20-30 seconds. Then nice.

 

[BigRedMart]

My thoughts on FM21 full fat version are positive. I think it’s my favourite FM. 
I love the ME UI. Not used to the team talk UI yet but the rest is really good and the whole match day experience is much better in my opinion. So good job to whomever designed it. 
I’m totally addicted to the game at the moment and can see myself playing it all year. Great job devs 😀👍

[JordanMilly]

6 hours ago, Roncatto99 said:

Someone at SI obviously loves Man U, cos they are so OP on the game. They are **** in real life, stop making them really good

SI don't determine the attributes, the scouts and researchers do. There was actually a really decent post from the Man United researcher talking about these very things (they actually don't have the best consistency attributes and Ole is a relatively poor manager by mental attribute standards - it's just very hard to make a team that by all rights should perform well perform as poorly as they are IRL).

[RinusFM]

9 hours ago, SebastianRO said:

What bug are you refering to mate ?

 This one. 

[kiwityke]

5 hours ago, JordanMillward_1 said:

SI don't determine the attributes, the scouts and researchers do. There was actually a really decent post from the Man United researcher talking about these very things (they actually don't have the best consistency attributes and Ole is a relatively poor manager by mental attribute standards - it's just very hard to make a team that by all rights should perform well perform as poorly as they are IRL).

IRL they are massively over rated though and that translates into the game. Pogba isn't world class IMO he never has been, he's a luxury player who has to have a team built around him so he has players who do the stuff he just can't bring himself to be bothered with or play in a league where midfielders are given eons of time on the ball cough Serie A cough.

Yet in FM hes a world beater. Man Utd have several such players.

Edited December 1, 2020 by kiwityke

[MatthewS17]

Is it just me or are there a very large amount of 1-0 and 0-0 matches going on? 

 

Also GK ignoring instructions to play short was giving me a headache in the beta, and now it's giving me a migraine. It's a pointless turnover in possession where he's clearly instructed to be doing the opposite. 

[Jimbokav1971]

33 minutes ago, kiwityke said:

IRL they are massively over rated though and that translates into the game. Pogba isn't world class IMO he never has been, he's a luxury player who has to have a team built around him so he has players who do the stuff he just can't bring himself to be bothered with or play in a league where midfielders are given eons of time on the ball cough Serie A cough.

Yet in FM hes a world beater. Man Utd have several such players.

An alternative view is that the likes of Pogba is in fact Wprld Class, but has been under-performing for Man Utd, as have many other players. I'm no Man Utd fan but I don't think many would argue that they are under-performing. 

[kiwityke]

Just now, Jimbokav1971 said:

 I don't think many would argue that they are under-performing. 

You are right they aren't under performing they are over rated...I know thats not what you meant and you've just miss typed...

Pogba isn't world class. He has obvious flaws in his game which are exposed by the rigors of the Premier League. Its happened to loads of midfielders who have shone abroad especially who were brilliant in Serie A. Where teams give you way more time and space and midfielders aren't expected to work quite so much.

In the Prem he's a luxury who performs maybe 1 every 5 or 6 games, one Man Utd can't afford as they don't have anywhere near enough the talent to carry him.

They've got several players I'd throw in that bracket. Rashford decent player not truly magnificent, won't ever have a 25-30 goal season...regularly does on FM.

Wan-Bissakka great at defending awful going forward an utter beast at both on FM.

They've got a squad of good not great players.

They've struggled IRL now for what half a decade?

When do we accept that well they are under performing should just be maybe they weren't very good to start with?

Yet they are every season one of the top 2 best teams in the Prem on FM. Where as they should by rights be 4-7th best IMO on talent and performances the last few seasons.

They are 100% over rated and have been for years in short IMO.

 

[Pav_Makarov]

 Did anyone notice that comprehensive highlights view almost never shows yellow cards, unless there is a goalscoring set-piece right after? I've been playing a game yesterday and deadass failed to realise I have three players with yellows cause there were no highlights. 

[Mr Tonio]

The constant center blocking, the poor decision from the wing backs, the 1on1 straight into GK, is nerve wracking. This Match engine is so bad... I'm going back to play CK3 in order to have my two hours of fun a day. . If anyone as kept the beta ME and is willing to pass it around, i will be eternally gratefull.

[Jimbokav1971]

8 minutes ago, Pav_Makarov said:

 Did anyone notice that comprehensive highlights view almost never shows yellow cards, unless there is a goalscoring set-piece right after? I've been playing a game yesterday and deadass failed to realise I have three players with yellows cause there were no highlights. 

Key highlights havent included the foul for penalties for years. Doesnt make sense at all. A missed penalty is a key highlight, but the awarding of a penalty isn't? Doesnt make sense to me. 

[rafaelbenitez]

22 minutes ago, Jimbokav1971 said:

Key highlights havent included the foul for penalties for years. Doesnt make sense at all. A missed penalty is a key highlight, but the awarding of a penalty isn't? Doesnt make sense to me. 

This isn't true. I always play on key highlights and the foul leading up to the penalty is always shown.

[Jimbokav1971]

58 minutes ago, Jimbokav1971 said:

Key highlights havent included the foul for penalties for years. Doesnt make sense at all. A missed penalty is a key highlight, but the awarding of a penalty isn't? Doesnt make sense to me. 

 

34 minutes ago, rafaelbenitez said:

This isn't true. I always play on key highlights and the foul leading up to the penalty is always shown.

Not key highlights after a game. 

[rafaelbenitez]

7 minutes ago, Jimbokav1971 said:

 

Not key highlights after a game. 

Ah, sorry, my misunderstanding.

[Luca Taidelli]

Hi everyone! I'm buying FM since maybe 2007, PSP edition... then I switched to PC when I had my first laptop, around 2009-2010.
The last few years I'm enjoying it but less and less. These are my concerns:

- Stop pushing us towards 3D, maybe someone like it, maybe not... but it's ridiculous pushing so much something that it's still NOT GOOD. I like the idea, the effort, but for me we are not there yet. And because I'm playing 2D for 10+ years I highly doubt I'll ever switch to 3D, even if the graphic will be similar to FIFA or PES. The manager mannequin at the start of the game it's horrible, why should you put out there something so bad? At the start page make a plain wallpaper, it's easier and definitely better. I'd prefer pulling out my eyes than seeing the mannequin. Sorry for the harsh opinion, but I REALLY HATE it. Respect us If we want to play 2D, and show us an option to disabling ALL 3D stuff, please.

- Transfers realism. I'm in the 2024/2025 season now. Started in Serie C in Italy and made my way up to Inter now. Inter in 3 years have dismantled a team, only players left from first season are De Vrij, Eriksen, Barella, Sensi. All the other player are not on the team anymore. Is this real for you? I'm making this example but I can watch any team and seeing there are too many transfers. Another example: Udinese one season in of my save bought a midfielder from Denmark for 117M... COME ON! It's not realistic. I'm old enough for remembering that years ago we had an option to select the frequency of the transfers (low, medium, high or something like that), please bring that back. (Side story: I commented on this with the official twitter page also last year and the official reply was that this is normal and there isn't a problem at all: GOOD JOB, you have made the problem even worse this year, be proud!)

That is all. I not intend to offend anyone, I respect the hell out of the creators but I really am passionate about these 2 things. I'd like the game, as a said I'm buying from 10+ years, but I don't get why it's difficult giving us these 2 things. All things that we had back in the past. We're adding more and more stuff, please never forget what we had that was working.

PS Sorry for my grammar, I'm italian.

[Jimbokav1971]

16 minutes ago, rafaelbenitez said:

Ah, sorry, my misunderstanding.

No, it's fine. I should have explained it better. My apologies. 

I use an IR button. You would think that key highlights during the game would be the same as key highlights after the game but unfortunately this isn't the case. You don't even get to see all penalties in a shoot-out, (but that's a whole different kettle of fish). 

[Jimbokav1971]

6 minutes ago, Luca Taidelli said:

PS Sorry for my grammar, I'm italian.

Your English is better than many English people. 

[themadsheep2001]

2 hours ago, Jimbokav1971 said:

An alternative view is that the likes of Pogba is in fact Wprld Class, but has been under-performing for Man Utd, as have many other players. I'm no Man Utd fan but I don't think many would argue that they are under-performing. 

It's also not anywhere near as clear cut as people make out either. The United researcher did a very detailed and enlightening post on it. 

[kiwityke]

45 minutes ago, themadsheep2001 said:

It's also not anywhere near as clear cut as people make out either. The United researcher did a very detailed and enlightening post on it. 

Man Utds results IRL and on FM I think are plain for anyone to see over a 5 year period.

Its not like we are talking about a short term one off. Its a long term trend that FM Utd consistently over perform in comparison to their real counter parts.

I'd argue consistent under performance over a 5 year period is a sure sign that the team is in fact over rated and they are in fact performing to their abilities which is about 4-7th in the Premier League. 

Not challenging for a title every year as they do on FM.

[themadsheep2001]

1 minute ago, kiwityke said:

Man Utds results IRL and on FM I think are plain for anyone to see over a 5 year period.

Its not like we are talking about a short term one off. Its a long term trend that FM Utd consistently over perform in comparison to their real counter parts.

I'd argue consistent under performance over a 5 year period is a sure sign that the team is in fact over rated and they are in fact performing to their abilities which is about 4-7th in the Premier League. 

Not challenging for a title every year as they do on FM.

This doesn't change my previous point at all. Like I said, people should read what the United researcher has written

[madskull.93]

1 hour ago, themadsheep2001 said:

It's also not anywhere near as clear cut as people make out either. The United researcher did a very detailed and enlightening post on it. 

Where can I find this post?

[JordanMilly]

10 minutes ago, madskull.93 said:

Where can I find this post?

 

[kiwityke]

49 minutes ago, themadsheep2001 said:

This doesn't change my previous point at all. Like I said, people should read what the United researcher has written

Do you know where he's written it? Have a link?

[SpecialOne Miko]

il y a 3 minutes, kiwityke a dit :

Do you know where he's written it? Have a link?

just above your post

[kiwityke]

1 minute ago, SpecialOne Miko said:

just above your post

Thanks yeah I saw after hitting send. Anyone know what page its on there are 18 of them and frankly his justifications are fairly meaningless Utd have been for years and still are massively OP.

[JordanMilly]

2 minutes ago, kiwityke said:

Thanks yeah I saw after hitting send. Anyone know what page its on there are 18 of them and frankly his justifications are fairly meaningless Utd have been for years and still are massively OP.

If you click on this button, it takes you direct to the post:
 

I'd also ask that people tone it down with the comments directed at the researcher, there's no need for any personal comments being directed at him, given that he's acknowledged that United seem to do better than, per their player consistency levels, etc, they should do, and that it's particularly difficult to make their future transfers be as inconsistent as they have been IRL. 

[kiwityke]

37 minutes ago, JordanMillward_1 said:

If you click on this button, it takes you direct to the post:
 

I'd also ask that people tone it down with the comments directed at the researcher, there's no need for any personal comments being directed at him, given that he's acknowledged that United seem to do better than, per their player consistency levels, etc, they should do, and that it's particularly difficult to make their future transfers be as inconsistent as they have been IRL. 

Thanks, I had no idea about that function.

I certainly wasn't personally attacking him. Its a pretty thankless and unpaid task and on the whole they do a wonderful job.

Also I don't expect once I get past 1 or 2 seasons for Fm to reflect reality so I don't have any issue with them becoming OP in the future. With their wealth and fan base they should dominate English football to some extent.

[vukigepard]

This year, ME is amazing. Much much better than any other before. UI is a step back from fm20, but i don't mind it too much and i am getting used to it.

Only problem i have, as i tend to play longterm saves, is with game being broken and unplayable due to youth intake problem, and it's really a shame, as i really want to continue playing.

Hope you guys fix it soon!

[MatthewS17]

6 hours ago, kiwityke said:

You are right they aren't under performing they are over rated...I know thats not what you meant and you've just miss typed...

Pogba isn't world class. He has obvious flaws in his game which are exposed by the rigors of the Premier League. Its happened to loads of midfielders who have shone abroad especially who were brilliant in Serie A. Where teams give you way more time and space and midfielders aren't expected to work quite so much.

In the Prem he's a luxury who performs maybe 1 every 5 or 6 games, one Man Utd can't afford as they don't have anywhere near enough the talent to carry him.

They've got several players I'd throw in that bracket. Rashford decent player not truly magnificent, won't ever have a 25-30 goal season...regularly does on FM.

Wan-Bissakka great at defending awful going forward an utter beast at both on FM.

They've got a squad of good not great players.

They've struggled IRL now for what half a decade?

When do we accept that well they are under performing should just be maybe they weren't very good to start with?

Yet they are every season one of the top 2 best teams in the Prem on FM. Where as they should by rights be 4-7th best IMO on talent and performances the last few seasons.

They are 100% over rated and have been for years in short IMO.

 

It seems you have a massive bone to pick rather than an apt point. Instead, you're just complaining. 

What you don't seem to know is that since the beginning of this year, Manchester United are still in fact one of the most form sides this year. I'm not really sure about right now, but recently they were the best team all year in terms of form. 

Pogba on return showed his ability in terms of statistics by topping most of them, and that is what SI will look at. He's been bad this season, but it seems easily forgotten that he's had Covid and what it's effects are. 

 

Manchester United are not overrated in a sense. They have some of the best quality players in the league. What they are is inconsistent, and unable to pick up quality results consistently. 

The fact that you're calling a team that recently beat PSG, who were CL finalists, and Leipzig, who were semi-finalists, overrated is beyond me. 

Just seems like an opinion rather than fact. 

Edited December 1, 2020 by MatthewS17

[kiwityke]

3 minutes ago, MatthewS17 said:

It seems you have a massive bone to pick rather than an apt point. Instead, you're just complaining. 

What you don't seem to know is that since the beginning of this year, Manchester United are still in fact one of the most form sides this year. I'm not really sure about right now, but recently they were the best team all year in terms of form. 

Pogba on return showed his ability in terms of statistics by topping most of them, and that is what SI will look at. He's been bad this season, but it seems easily forgotten that he's had Covid and what it's effects are. 

 

Manchester United are not overrated in a sense. They have some of the best quality players in the league. What they are is inconsistent, and unable to pick up quality results consistently. 

The fact that you're calling a team that recently beat PSG, who were CL finalists, and Leipzig, who were semi-finalists, overrated is beyond me. 

Just seems like an opinion rather than fact. 

I don't actually have a massive bone to pick.

It is without question they have been massively over rated on FM.

Out of the box they aren't massively inconsistent they consistently challenge for a title in the first season.

That is unrealistic.

A few one off results are nothing when put against the fact Utd have struggled to make an impact in the league for half a decade now.

Except on FM where they more often than not smash the league only losing a few games straight away first season.

Utd are a strange team with players that are good not great hence over a season they are where they are but they can beat top teams occasionally. Also note they ultimately lost in the Champs League heavily to pretty rubbish teams fairly regularly.

My team Barnsley a few years back beat Liverpool and Chelsea, almost got relegated that year as an example as to why "well they beat X,y or z" isn't really a good argument as to how good a team is.

League position over half a decade is though.

Like I said before they are between 4th-7th in raw ability IMO. (According to the researcher they are rated as 5th on FM and that seems fair to me) but for whatever reason they smash the league.

This is a feedback thread my feedback is Utd are massively overrated, doesn't change my enjoyment of the game one iota to be honest.

[imp44791]

Apologies for not putting this in the main feedback thread, but the main angle of this post is to contrast the trends and design decisions as viewed by an old player who had dropped the game for a number of years. For those of us who play a franchise every year (in my case it is MLB The Show) year-to-year changes are either too incremental to be noteworthy, or too drastic as to be annoying – witness this year’s reactions to the UI changes. A gap of a few years – 6 iterations missed in my case – allows a more neutral look to the game as it stands now. At least this is how I see it.

My own background, because it’s necessary if my comments make sense. I played some of the old 90s versions irregularly, then every iteration quite heavily from 03-04 (or was it 04-05?) to 12, then skipped 13 and finally stopped buying after 14. I am very much old fashioned in the way I approach the game. For me it’s a spreadsheet game which depends for its grip on me on the storytelling that I do inside my head. Basically I roleplay, and for this reason Lower League Management (hardcore style) is very much my default. So, my enjoyment depends on immersion. Some design decisions over the years have greatly aided that, with the dots moving around in 2-D being by far the greatest one of all. Others have been rubbing me the wrong way from back in the day: the media part above all, with its repetitive answers and “walking on eggshells” approach of fearing to push the wrong button and annoying/demotivating your squad. So, the most enjoyable FMs were 06 and 07, when the media game was in its infancy but the dancing dots were in all their glory. This way I could depend on the game for hard info and the bits that I enjoy the most (tactics and the transfer game, especially the bargain hunting of LLMa) and imagine the rest – the infamous “toilet seat press conference” was as much my own favourite as anyone’s.

I also didn’t particularly like FM ’14 and didn’t really play it before this year’s lockdown when I got back to it for a while. By sticking to the 2-D visualisation and sending the Assman to worry about the press, I only had the player babysitting module to annoy me: once again dealing with a poor simulation of two people communicating while being unable to have any input other than guessing which one of the 4-5 terribly worded responses is the least likely to set off the electronic baby in front of me. It worked well enough for lockdown, though the 3-4 woodwork strikes per game were enough to annoy the crap out of me even so.

OK, so how do I see FM ’21? Some design evolution has been wonderful. Training feels intuitive and is hugely enjoyable trying to refine. Tactics building is a bit oddly phrased (who uses old-style “cattenaccio” as a basic tactical canvas these days? Why not W-M or Pyramid?) but once you look past the terminology it is also pretty fun to try to fine tune. The ME looks reasonable, though the game feels easy so far. Without really doing anything too amazing I’ve gone long stretches undefeated and easily won promotion to Serie B with a strong-ish team (Pro Vercelli). There are perhaps a few too many ricochets off defenders and a few too many 30 yard screamers for Serie C, but on the whole it is immersive and enjoyable. I haven’t really played the transfer game so far, since I always freeze the first transfer window and I was already up against my wage budget with an already large squad. But so far the scouting game feels evolved compared with FM14, and in the right direction. I like the way that the scouts work, very hit and miss as in real life, and the way that incremental scouting knowledge of players works. Definitely helps immersion. Performance has been fantastic, even with a very heavy loading of leagues. I have a decent rig, but definitely not a cutting edge machine. There is a recurring crash at exit to desktop, indeed I have not as yet quit the game without it crashing, but it hasn’t polluted any saves so no worries really.

The above is the core part of the game for me which would normally be enough to have me enjoyed without issues. And I do enjoy it so far. But it’s hard work. The biggest problem of all is that the designers have opted for a path away from the “spreadsheet game that urges you to tell stories to yourself inside your head” option to one of trying to create a computerised world. Hence you get the pathetic little Ken doll for your avatar and the bunch of empty chairs room during team meetings and press conferences. It is disastrous. It looks like an adventure game from the 1980s where you enter a room with a static picture and a block of text below it describing what you see. I half expected to see “You can go: North, East and Up”. In other sports franchises (e.g. the aforementioned MLB The Show) there is also that: the locker room is full of players walking and chatting, or you see the players in the bus/plane travelling to another town as a backdrop for the game’s menus. There are a few crucial differences that aid rather than kill immersion in this case: the graphics are great; the players are visible and have good models (for a game); and most importantly, you cannot hear what they are saying to each other. Your imagination fills in. It looks and feels natural and immersive. FMs empty conference rooms do not.

Equally immersion-killing is the aforementioned Ken doll that is meant to represent you. It’s also inexplicable. Of all the people in the game the only person who is not allowed to use their own chosen photograph is you. Everyone else can have a picture, either built in, or from one of the fantastic cutout packs circulating in the Internets ™. Players, coaches, scouts, they all deserve a photograph. The only person who does not is you – the person who forked out 30odd quid to buy the thing in the first place. I understand this is a longstanding complaint, as it arose in the 6 years I was away from playing, and the the developer insists on forcing this. I have only one comment if this is indeed the case: Samsung Bixby. I am a massive Samsung fan in telephones, and I was furious to be forced to have the stupid button for the useless voice assistant. I paid four figures for an otherwise fantastic product, but I was not allowed to program that button to something that I wanted. Nope. Bixby is what you get. Doesn’t matter if you don’t like it. You get it. Yes, yes, there are apps that dealt with that, and I got them like everyone else. But I i don’t understand this attitude by a company to its loyal consumers. Why try to force them to do something they don’t want (and Samsung fought against the Bixby killing apps hard in the early years, to the point that people avoided otherwise important patches so as not to have the damn thing come back from the dead)? Yes, I can pre-empt the “you are not typical – other people love it”. Wonderful. Let them love it? Can I please have an option to opt out of the Ken doll please and use a photograph like back in the day? It is absolutely woeful.

Equally woeful is the UI in many parts of the game as others have mentioned. I do not mind so much the change of the menu orders during the game as others do, because I did not have the experience of the last 6 years so I don’t have the same muscle memory as them. But the press conference/team meeting one (the 80s adventure game module, as above) is an absolute torture. The eyes dance around from tiny lettered question to tiny lettered answer, it searches in vain for important information like where the player you want to praise/light a fine under actually is. It gives an actual headache. It’s bad. As a friendly piece of advice: get a few players during early alpha next time and have them play with the UI for a week. You will get all these hints early enough so that you don’t have to reverse everything next year – or ignore the complaints and annoy your customers more.

I know this is long, but I thought I have something useful to say here. I am not “bashing” the developer, and I certainly will not enter a “whiners vs fanboys” flamewar here. I actually like the game and feel it can be made much better next time around. Just give people a few more options for new features, like you do with the match engine. I don’t like the 3-D at all – it looks like FIFA ’97 (or  perhaps ’07, but no later than that). But it doesn’t matter. The glorious dots are still there, pinballing around the green rectangle. My imagination does the rest. Why not do the same with the press module, the babysitting module, and the Bixby-Ken-Doll bit? We’re actually all on the same side – you make something nice, we pay you for it. Everyone should be happy, no?

[Dave C]

The ability to ask your board for an U23 side appears to have been removed? This means if you don't start with one, you cannot get one. Especially frustrating if you build a smaller team up through the leagues. In FM20 you could request this, but you were then stuck with a team that could only play friendlies. It feels like the SI solution to that issue, has been to remove the compromise altogether. A sledgehammer to crack a nut?

Similarly, even if you have an U18 side, if they don't start in a league, you don't get invited into a league at any point as you move up the leagues.

These aren't bugs as such, because they are clearly designed this way, but they do ruin the longer-term game for anyone not taking up with a top side.

[Bakiano]

8 hours ago, kiwityke said:

IRL they are massively over rated though and that translates into the game. Pogba isn't world class IMO he never has been, he's a luxury player who has to have a team built around him so he has players who do the stuff he just can't bring himself to be bothered with or play in a league where midfielders are given eons of time on the ball cough Serie A cough.

Yet in FM hes a world beater. Man Utd have several such players.

Pogba at Juve was a world class player. Now at Man Utd he is underperforming.

[kiwityke]

3 minutes ago, Bakiano said:

Pogba at Juve was a world class player. Now at Man Utd he is underperforming.

He looks good when he has time and space. He looks less good when he doesn't or he has to work for space or to get the ball back. Something you get far more of in Serie A.

He tends to dwell on the ball a lot, something you just can't do in the Premier League.

I could probably list half a dozen midfielders who looked world class in serie A but looked largely awful in the prem for similar reasons. Juan Veron instantly springs to mind (so you'd think Utd would learn).

He has maybe 10 good games a season said nobody about a truly world class player...yet I'm meant to believe Paul Pogba is world class! 

And you get 1 maybe 2 seasons to under perform. After 5 you are just over rated I'm sorry but that absolutely applies to Paul Pogba.

[Double Indemnity]

9 minutes ago, kiwityke said:

He looks good when he has time and space. He looks less good when he doesn't or he has to work for space or to get the ball back. Something you get far more of in Serie A.

He tends to dwell on the ball a lot, something you just can't do in the Premier League.

This is such a tired, trite comparison between the leagues. Never mind that Pogba played in 40 Champions League games for Juve.

[Ras]

Been playing the game, enjoying it, will come here for any feedback/comments as I play.

1 thing that's been an issue for a while is players mutiny's that are unrealistic, for example I had a very good team and had to leave some players out of the Euro Cup squad but the players were furious I had to leave some of the players out, even though they themselves were included.  There can be a lot more understanding/sense/realism there because players wouldn't risk there own position for a teamates and go crazy when we're doing well just because I couldn't register everyone.  That then becomes a hindrance which sometimes have to fix with the editor to remove unhappiness.  

Another thing on the Team Report it may be a little bit too graphs now, would be good to have the option to have the basic ones, this also happens in some other areas of the games.   A lot of these things could be smoother and easier and have more options for people that like to play in different ways.

Another way this might show is the players condition, it seems the percentage thing is now off for the first time in a long time.  Also you have to hover over each individual player to see their state unless you've memorized what the colors mean.

[LarsHermus]

I don't know what to think about FM21 this year.

In some sense I like the game, it feels faster and de 3D engine looks smoother (although I don't really care, I play in 2D). But there are way more things I don't like. For example the screen in between the highlights (with the tablet, dugout and the player bar at the bottom), it is so unclear in my opinion. I can't even see if a player is injured. I have to go down at the bottom left to pop up the tactics screen to see it. That's not realitisc. If I'm supposed to see my players emotions from the side (which in my opinon is also unrealistic at all, but allright it's in the game for a long time) than surely I need to see if a player is injured right? The way this screen appeared in FM20 was in my opinion way better. Also there are a lot of bugs, not only in text messages (some translations are not right, two words are combined: "Manager van AprilKlopp"), but also the whole under 18 staff is missing in the Netherlands. In the two week beta there was no problem at all because the under 18 staff was still the under 19 like it was untill last year. How is it possible that in the full game you deliver something that is not complete?

I know that just like the FIFA franchise at the moment FM has a problem to make sure that every new game feels like a new game. You can't really make new groundbreaking features because you have already made them in previous editions. For example the training and tactics overhaul was really good, I liked that in FM19. But in FM21 the features don't really feel new or are even necessary. The new emotions at press conferences, who cares? I don't. Removing the player familiarity roles, fitness and matchsharpness is in some sense realistic, but makes it also very unclear. The transfermeeting, it seems new but you could already give your scouts players to look for certain positions and roles.

I don't hate the new FM, I find the game very sloppy. I also think if Miles Jacobson said this was his "dream FM, with some features missing", I don't think this is a realistic review on this years game. I hope there will be a hotfix coming soon to fix most of the issues like the text and database problems. But for the coming years I really hope SI step up and most importantly listen to the players. Ask what we are missing and what we want to see to change, besides the obvious database update and engine update each year.

Feel free to have a conversation with me. I am playing FM since FM16 with an average of over 300 hours per game so I would say I am not an expert on the game but above average let's say. Since this years edition bugged me so much I decided to make an account for this forum, thus explaining why this looks like an amateur is giving comment on this game. I just hoped as a lover of this franchise SI would have released a better game. But that is just my opinion 

[Double Indemnity]

2 hours ago, imp44791 said:

The biggest problem of all is that the designers have opted for a path away from the “spreadsheet game that urges you to tell stories to yourself inside your head” option to one of trying to create a computerised world. Hence you get the pathetic little Ken doll for your avatar and the bunch of empty chairs room during team meetings and press conferences. It is disastrous. It looks like an adventure game from the 1980s where you enter a room with a static picture and a block of text below it describing what you see. I half expected to see “You can go: North, East and Up”.

[...]

Can I please have an option to opt out of the Ken doll please and use a photograph like back in the day? It is absolutely woeful.

Equally woeful is the UI in many parts of the game as others have mentioned. I do not mind so much the change of the menu orders during the game as others do, because I did not have the experience of the last 6 years so I don’t have the same muscle memory as them. But the press conference/team meeting one (the 80s adventure game module, as above) is an absolute torture. The eyes dance around from tiny lettered question to tiny lettered answer, it searches in vain for important information like where the player you want to praise/light a fine under actually is. It gives an actual headache. It’s bad.

Strongly agree with all of this. The current game feels like it's creaking under the weight of some imposed directorial vision that doesn't fit. Is the end goal to make FM a first-person virtual reality RPG where you wander around some empty offices, sit down at your chair, and do paperwork at your desk? If so, the graphics need to move beyond Second Life territory.

But I'd argue that these choices make the experience of interacting with the game more time-consuming, less intuitive, uglier, and more prescriptive. I can no longer freely imagine what my office looks like at a lower-league club in Chile, or Sicily, or Australia; it's always these same drab rooms with their flat lighting and blurry pictures on the wall. It actively murders my immersion in the world that the mechanics work so hard to create.

I wish I could turn off all 3D except the match engine, and nuke my "avatar" from orbit.

[CM]

Has anybody noticed interesting newspaper headlines in this edition after big wins or great performances? For example in FM 19 I saw headlines like Antonio Mar-vellous (Antonio Marin), Hsv in seventh heaven and Leipzig is simply gr-eight. Is there anything like this in this one? Didn't see them in FM 20 either.

[TheVerySpecialOne]

2 hours ago, imp44791 said:

Apologies for not putting this in the main feedback thread, but the main angle of this post is to contrast the trends and design decisions as viewed by an old player who had dropped the game for a number of years. For those of us who play a franchise every year (in my case it is MLB The Show) year-to-year changes are either too incremental to be noteworthy, or too drastic as to be annoying – witness this year’s reactions to the UI changes. A gap of a few years – 6 iterations missed in my case – allows a more neutral look to the game as it stands now. At least this is how I see it.

My own background, because it’s necessary if my comments make sense. I played some of the old 90s versions irregularly, then every iteration quite heavily from 03-04 (or was it 04-05?) to 12, then skipped 13 and finally stopped buying after 14. I am very much old fashioned in the way I approach the game. For me it’s a spreadsheet game which depends for its grip on me on the storytelling that I do inside my head. Basically I roleplay, and for this reason Lower League Management (hardcore style) is very much my default. So, my enjoyment depends on immersion. Some design decisions over the years have greatly aided that, with the dots moving around in 2-D being by far the greatest one of all. Others have been rubbing me the wrong way from back in the day: the media part above all, with its repetitive answers and “walking on eggshells” approach of fearing to push the wrong button and annoying/demotivating your squad. So, the most enjoyable FMs were 06 and 07, when the media game was in its infancy but the dancing dots were in all their glory. This way I could depend on the game for hard info and the bits that I enjoy the most (tactics and the transfer game, especially the bargain hunting of LLMa) and imagine the rest – the infamous “toilet seat press conference” was as much my own favourite as anyone’s.

I also didn’t particularly like FM ’14 and didn’t really play it before this year’s lockdown when I got back to it for a while. By sticking to the 2-D visualisation and sending the Assman to worry about the press, I only had the player babysitting module to annoy me: once again dealing with a poor simulation of two people communicating while being unable to have any input other than guessing which one of the 4-5 terribly worded responses is the least likely to set off the electronic baby in front of me. It worked well enough for lockdown, though the 3-4 woodwork strikes per game were enough to annoy the crap out of me even so.

OK, so how do I see FM ’21? Some design evolution has been wonderful. Training feels intuitive and is hugely enjoyable trying to refine. Tactics building is a bit oddly phrased (who uses old-style “cattenaccio” as a basic tactical canvas these days? Why not W-M or Pyramid?) but once you look past the terminology it is also pretty fun to try to fine tune. The ME looks reasonable, though the game feels easy so far. Without really doing anything too amazing I’ve gone long stretches undefeated and easily won promotion to Serie B with a strong-ish team (Pro Vercelli). There are perhaps a few too many ricochets off defenders and a few too many 30 yard screamers for Serie C, but on the whole it is immersive and enjoyable. I haven’t really played the transfer game so far, since I always freeze the first transfer window and I was already up against my wage budget with an already large squad. But so far the scouting game feels evolved compared with FM14, and in the right direction. I like the way that the scouts work, very hit and miss as in real life, and the way that incremental scouting knowledge of players works. Definitely helps immersion. Performance has been fantastic, even with a very heavy loading of leagues. I have a decent rig, but definitely not a cutting edge machine. There is a recurring crash at exit to desktop, indeed I have not as yet quit the game without it crashing, but it hasn’t polluted any saves so no worries really.

The above is the core part of the game for me which would normally be enough to have me enjoyed without issues. And I do enjoy it so far. But it’s hard work. The biggest problem of all is that the designers have opted for a path away from the “spreadsheet game that urges you to tell stories to yourself inside your head” option to one of trying to create a computerised world. Hence you get the pathetic little Ken doll for your avatar and the bunch of empty chairs room during team meetings and press conferences. It is disastrous. It looks like an adventure game from the 1980s where you enter a room with a static picture and a block of text below it describing what you see. I half expected to see “You can go: North, East and Up”. In other sports franchises (e.g. the aforementioned MLB The Show) there is also that: the locker room is full of players walking and chatting, or you see the players in the bus/plane travelling to another town as a backdrop for the game’s menus. There are a few crucial differences that aid rather than kill immersion in this case: the graphics are great; the players are visible and have good models (for a game); and most importantly, you cannot hear what they are saying to each other. Your imagination fills in. It looks and feels natural and immersive. FMs empty conference rooms do not.

Equally immersion-killing is the aforementioned Ken doll that is meant to represent you. It’s also inexplicable. Of all the people in the game the only person who is not allowed to use their own chosen photograph is you. Everyone else can have a picture, either built in, or from one of the fantastic cutout packs circulating in the Internets ™. Players, coaches, scouts, they all deserve a photograph. The only person who does not is you – the person who forked out 30odd quid to buy the thing in the first place. I understand this is a longstanding complaint, as it arose in the 6 years I was away from playing, and the the developer insists on forcing this. I have only one comment if this is indeed the case: Samsung Bixby. I am a massive Samsung fan in telephones, and I was furious to be forced to have the stupid button for the useless voice assistant. I paid four figures for an otherwise fantastic product, but I was not allowed to program that button to something that I wanted. Nope. Bixby is what you get. Doesn’t matter if you don’t like it. You get it. Yes, yes, there are apps that dealt with that, and I got them like everyone else. But I i don’t understand this attitude by a company to its loyal consumers. Why try to force them to do something they don’t want (and Samsung fought against the Bixby killing apps hard in the early years, to the point that people avoided otherwise important patches so as not to have the damn thing come back from the dead)? Yes, I can pre-empt the “you are not typical – other people love it”. Wonderful. Let them love it? Can I please have an option to opt out of the Ken doll please and use a photograph like back in the day? It is absolutely woeful.

Equally woeful is the UI in many parts of the game as others have mentioned. I do not mind so much the change of the menu orders during the game as others do, because I did not have the experience of the last 6 years so I don’t have the same muscle memory as them. But the press conference/team meeting one (the 80s adventure game module, as above) is an absolute torture. The eyes dance around from tiny lettered question to tiny lettered answer, it searches in vain for important information like where the player you want to praise/light a fine under actually is. It gives an actual headache. It’s bad. As a friendly piece of advice: get a few players during early alpha next time and have them play with the UI for a week. You will get all these hints early enough so that you don’t have to reverse everything next year – or ignore the complaints and annoy your customers more.

I know this is long, but I thought I have something useful to say here. I am not “bashing” the developer, and I certainly will not enter a “whiners vs fanboys” flamewar here. I actually like the game and feel it can be made much better next time around. Just give people a few more options for new features, like you do with the match engine. I don’t like the 3-D at all – it looks like FIFA ’97 (or  perhaps ’07, but no later than that). But it doesn’t matter. The glorious dots are still there, pinballing around the green rectangle. My imagination does the rest. Why not do the same with the press module, the babysitting module, and the Bixby-Ken-Doll bit? We’re actually all on the same side – you make something nice, we pay you for it. Everyone should be happy, no?

That's it, that's what I've been thinking but couldn't express it. FM is not an RPG, we don't want to walk around the stadion, throw bottles etc. That's not what makes FM realistic, attention to detail, micromanagement, immersive world etc. stuff like that is what made us fall in love with the series.

Edited December 1, 2020 by TheVerySpecialOne

[ray27]

Am I being blind? Can not for the life of me find option to slow down replay speed, Used to be in the match option on preferences

[Double Indemnity]

Just to illustrate some of the UI complaints with an example.

In the screenshot, I've highlighted where my eye naturally falls in red; it's where it's led by the perspective of the scene. Meanwhile, things I will need to read or potentially interact with are in green. The yellow overlay is unused dead space. I'm playing on a 27" 1440p monitor, and my eye has to traverse all of the yellow to find the things in green, which are laid out in ways that defy reading order or any eye-tracking research I'm aware of. I have to go from the red to the green box to the green circles, read through the rote text, select one, then go back to continue in the top right (which, again, defies convention; most confirm prompts in most UI design sit in the bottom right because that's where readers finish). And that's a best-case scenario. If I want to do anything else, I have to go to the far corners of the screen or dig into other menus to find information not available on this screen, the overwhelming expanse of which is wasted.

And why is it wasted? To fit in a 3D "backdrop" of the corner of a flatly lit office with a drop ceiling and some cabling on the wall. And a "Football Manager" step and repeat that reminds me I'm playing a videogame called Football Manager, in case I'd forgotten. I guess the idea here is that I, the manager, am standing in front of this and being interviewed by James Mitchell? But why is James Mitchell represented, in 2D space, as being in front of the step and repeat, while I, the manger, am at the bottom of the screen? There is a 2D schematic of our conversation that is completely at odds with the pointless, gamey 3D depiction of it. I had to leave other, useful information behind to get to this full-screen presentation. Now consider how this conversation is depicted (up and down) versus every single conversation you've ever seen represented in, say, a messaging app, or social media DMs, all of which acknowledge that people read from left to right and from top to bottom, and that real-life conversations happen in lateral space.

The best user experience I can hope for here is that if I see this screen often enough—and I'll see it 50+ times a season!—I'll get good at clicking through it really fast by learning an algorithmic set of approaches to press questions, same as in previous years. But the act of reading and clicking on things is now harder and less intuitive than it was before, and I am far more conscious that I'm playing a videogame than I was in the past.

[SebastianRO]

10 minutes ago, Double Indemnity said:

Just to illustrate some of the UI complaints with an example.

In the screenshot, I've highlighted where my eye naturally falls in red; it's where it's led by the perspective of the scene. Meanwhile, things I will need to read or potentially interact with are in green. The yellow overlay is unused dead space. I'm playing on a 27" 1440p monitor, and my eye has to traverse all of the yellow to find the things in green, which are laid out in ways that defy reading order or any eye-tracking research I'm aware of. I have to go from the red to the green box to the green circles, read through the rote text, select one, then go back to continue in the top right (which, again, defies convention; most confirm prompts in most UI design sit in the bottom right because that's where readers finish). And that's a best-case scenario. If I want to do anything else, I have to go to the far corners of the screen or dig into other menus to find information not available on this screen, the overwhelming expanse of which is wasted.

And why is it wasted? To fit in a 3D "backdrop" of the corner of a flatly lit office with a drop ceiling and some cabling on the wall. And a "Football Manager" step and repeat that reminds me I'm playing a videogame called Football Manager, in case I'd forgotten. I guess the idea here is that I, the manager, am standing in front of this and being interviewed by James Mitchell? But why is James Mitchell represented, in 2D space, as being in front of the step and repeat, while I, the manger, am at the bottom of the screen? There is a 2D schematic of our conversation that is completely at odds with the pointless, gamey 3D depiction of it. I had to leave other, useful information behind to get to this full-screen presentation. Now consider how this conversation is depicted (up and down) versus every single conversation you've ever seen represented in, say, a messaging app, or social media DMs, all of which acknowledge that people read from left to right and from top to bottom, and that real-life conversations happen in lateral space.

The best user experience I can hope for here is that if I see this screen often enough—and I'll see it 50+ times a season!—I'll get good at clicking through it really fast by learning an algorithmic set of approaches to press questions, same as in previous years. But the act of reading and clicking on things is now harder and less intuitive than it was before, and I am far more conscious that I'm playing a videogame than I was in the past.

Oh boy, you couldn't have said it better. The game overall is really good, but the decisions behind the UI are absolutely .... Every time I go over this nonsense I feel disconected from the game, immersion breaks and frustration sets in. The goal was to make you, the manager part of the game, but it has managed to achieve the exact oposite. I have been saying this for years: just fine tune existing features that make this a fantastic game, don't just add "features" that nobody really asks for. If you do, that's also fine, but only do it if you, as a developer / company are doing it properly. Looking at the image above ... come on ... how can you even take it seriously ? I can't even say it's bad .... more like cringy.

@Double Indemnity I have delegated every single press conference and team-talk to the Ass Man, just so I don't have to deal with this. Also, the team talks .... you have to look up, left and right in order to see the player's reaction .... worful.

Edited December 1, 2020 by SebastianRO