Football Manager 2021 Official Feedback Thread

[Sharkn20]

35 minutes ago, RioImmagina said:

The un started from FM20 a bad habit: trasform UI in a useless clickfest. FM19, i want to promote a U19 player to first team: U19 (1 click), player (1 click), move to (1 click). Total =3 clicks.

FM20/21: development (1), U19 (2), team (3), player (4), move to (5). 5 clicks. 

Try to modify your tactic during a match in FM21: you have to click a lot.

Also: useless features.

You perfectly sum up the xg, but look at new features: 

Young intake informations: good, but... What i have to do with this? It's too late to change my january market strategy! 

Development: a horrible clickfest. It was so simple when you could select report in U19 screen. Now you have to (not choose, have to) open the development screen only to search your U19 players. 

 

 

That's not accurate, you can select your U19 team clicking in the U19 tag, you only need to control Individual training for example to have that tag in there right under the Dev. Centre as it was in FM20.

Edited December 2, 2020 by Sharkn20

[Tony Wright 747]

4 hours ago, huesey1974 said:

Hi,

im no spring chicken and have been playing football manager games since the zx spectrum days. Every management game that came out I bought thats my thing. Dont play much else. Now FM has obviously improved massively throughout the years but for me its slowed down. Every year new features are added but if i am brutaly honest most are not required. For me polish up all the good features and make the ME much better, its not improving enough. Thungs like diving headers, excuse me if not the case  but have not seen one in all the timebi have played. Loads of other things that i feel could add to a better ME, im not expecting Fifa graphics but it needs to be better than it is. Still love playing the game so dont get me wrong but improvevthe important things and i feel it could be amazing.

I see diving headers in my FM12 save

[ai2ker]

On 01/12/2020 at 12:06, Double Indemnity said:

More fun with UI/UX, this time in a match:

There are four ways to meaningfully affect how the match engine screen displays. They are in ... four different corners of the screen. So I've pointed them out with arrows!

In the top left, we can hide or unhide the Match Stats and Notable Events panel. This wasn't clear to me initially, because the blue icon is a little hard to parse at 1440p and uses no familiar interactable iconography. You cannot customize this Match Stats panel as you could in the past (more on that in a second!), and you cannot shrink or adjust the size of the Notable Events section, even though it takes up a huge chunk of dead space. Clicking on the team names or clock also controls this panel, rather than, say, taking you to a team screen or pausing the clock.

In the bottom left, there's a (hugely important) expand button for Tactics & Subs that gives you access to in-detail stuff. It's kind of buried at the end of an eye scan, which is weird. Also, once you expand this panel, you have to close it by clicking cancel in the bottom right, which is another long journey for the eye and the mouse. Almost none of the other interactions use this sequence! You cannot click the button twice to collapse the expand, even if you didn't take any actions; likewise, you can't click in the open space above the expanded panel. This panel also re-animates every time you click a tab (Tactics, Player, Set Pieces, etc.), which is a bizarre and disorienting choice. The distance from the tabs in the top left to the cancel button in the bottom right is, again, a screen width.

In the top right, you have your match speed, viewing options, play/pause stuff. There's actually a nearly hidden bar that allows you to record, rewind time, etc. ... though it's divorced from the game clock in the top left, and the absence of a timeline reduces player control overall. All of these options are uncoupled from all the information panels that would cause you to interact with them.

In the bottom right, you can hide the Tactics & Subs panel, even though it uses the same coloration as the SUBS button below it, which actually flicks between substitutes and players on the pitch (unhelpfully labeled "PITCH" rather than "ON PITCH" or "PLAYING"). This may just be me, but I found the label inconsistent with what's being shown: at a glance, I thought it was showing subs when SUBS was the label; it's the reverse. You can also show/hide the Touchline Tablet here ... provided a highlight is playing. If a highlight is not playing, the icon stays there but no longer hides the window, which feels bad. In general, the game does a poor job of distinguishing between "in highlight" and "not in highlight" than it used to, though the motion graphic in the top left is appreciated.

Some questions:

• Why are these four discrete interactable areas not combined as tabs or better arranged to minimize eye and mouse movement?
• Why are they so poorly labeled?
• Why do they all use different and internally contradictory interactions?
• Why does the interaction icon for "Tactics & Subs" work differently than the interaction icon for "Instructions" even though they're the same icon?
• Why, if I open a Shouts panel, am I able to click outside it to cancel, but can't do that with Instructions or Tactics & Subs, even if I haven't made any changes?
• Why do some of these icons lose functionality in different game states?
• Why are there no hover states or tooltips for these buttons?
• Why are there no keyboard shortcuts? If there are keyboard shortcuts I'm not aware of, why are they not shown to the player?
• Does a new user know to use spacebar to play/pause? How?

Let's turn to that Touchline Tablet, which basically lets you blob some (not all) of the old widgets and rearrange them. It's on the far right of the screen, past a lot of dead space (highlighted in yellow), including the wasted notable events space and wasted "dugout" space that rarely populates (and sometimes vanishes before you can act on it). My eye frequently has to "read" past these blank spaces.

Vitally, I cannot drag or rearrange these panels, which is a major step back from previous versions, and the panels pay no respect to higher resolutions; I cannot even resize Match Stats or The Dugout. Also, if I see something actionable on the Touchline Tablet, my eye and mouse now have to jerk all the way back to the bottom left to make adjustments. Some of what's in this screen is redundant or unhelpful. It duplicates player information shown in the bottom bar (albeit in a much more readable list format)! It duplicates match stats! Yes, it lets you customize them, but you won't see that customization reflected in the top left, because someone at SI has decreed that the customization and flexibility present in earlier versions has to go in favor of a "realistic" touchline tablet that is anything but realistic.

So we're left with an active impediment to clarity that fights the user's eye and is uncoupled from the actions you might take in response to it, which are scattered in the corners of the screen. And because this is the defined vertical height and layout of the panel, you frequently have to scroll information within the panel because you can't pop out or resize the information as discrete panels. Again, you used to be able to do this! It was granular and great!

Some bonus questions:

• Why are the team names shortened at higher resolutions? It seems unnecessary.
• Why is game speed set to max by default in FM21?
• Why do left clicks on the subs product menus similar to right-click menus throughout the rest of the game? Meanwhile, right clicks here do nothing?
• When I'm viewing my substitutes, why does clicking them do nothing? Shouldn't I at least be able to select "Substitute On"?
• Why is Notable Events not available in the Touchline Tablet? If I use the (superior) Match Stats panel available the tablet, I can't turn off the leftmost panel without losing the events.

Just gotta say, PREACH! You're hitting a lot on my complaints here:

 

[Aim_Less]

does today's patch league fixes requires a new save? specifically because Portuguese  b teams playing cups their not allowed is kinda annoying 
 

Edited December 3, 2020 by Aim_Less

[CaptCanuck]

I've been too much of a Buzz Killington, time to upload a couple clips of those neat through ball goals the Alzete to Connolly connection has gotten for me!

Righty-ho clip recorded and this promising and familiar dialog pops up. That's as far as we get.

 Can someone help me out finding this video stuff in FM20, but in FM21 please :-) I searched on 'clip recorded' and didn't find anything

Edited December 3, 2020 by CaptCanuck

[Sherkey]

Also, for people who were unable to move between Tactics and Team talk screens at half time - the arrow keys (left and right) allow you to do that. There is no button for it, but in case you want to do it, the arrow keys work the same way.

[Viking]

Have you reverted back to the FM20 match engine? Suddenly I can't win matcges again. Not to mention the number of 90:th minute goals I concede, preferably from corners.

[WHUkain21]

1 hour ago, Viking said:

Have you reverted back to the FM20 match engine? Suddenly I can't win matcges again. Not to mention the number of 90:th minute goals I concede, preferably from corners.

Same bro, it is impossible to build any kind of conssistency no matter what i tacticly do or what kind of team i have...

But still engine is much better than fm20. 

Edited December 3, 2020 by WHUkain21

[d d]

How do you keep it on Windowed mode when you start loading screens. Mine always go back to full screen

 

 

[FrazT]

1 hour ago, Viking said:

Have you reverted back to the FM20 match engine? Suddenly I can't win matcges again. Not to mention the number of 90:th minute goals I concede, preferably from corners.

The changes in the recent update and their impact on the ME has been explained in detail by the SI staff earlier in this thread

[Bcfcfc12]

Is FM touch compatible with Chromebooks, Play store gives me an option to D/L, Thanx in advance.

[Jimbokav1971]

On 01/12/2020 at 20:39, Pav_Makarov said:

The lack of yellow cards highlights is extremely annoying. I play on comprehensive and I have not seen a single highlight of my players being booked in the last two games and it's near to impossible to track when this happens. I watch the game attentively, but in this mess of between highlights screen the moment of booking is just not seen. It's just BOOM and you realise you have two players booked. Of course you can view it via notable events, but this whole thing rips you out of game's context. Very maddening,

Do you think I should post it to bugs section? 

A lack of yellow cards? 

I have played a season where 5 different players in my squad collected 15+ yellow cards in a season and I wasn't even trying. 

[TheVerySpecialOne]

4 minutes ago, Jimbokav1971 said:

A lack of yellow cards? 

I have played a season where 5 different players in my squad collected 15+ yellow cards in a season and I wasn't even trying. 

Lack of yellow card highlights.

 

Btw, after playing a bit more I concluded that I don't like the new UI and the course FM has taken in that regard, give me spreadsheets, intuitive lists where I can quickly find info and data I want instead of data spread all over the screen to mimic the look of the locker room/press conference rom.

[Jimbokav1971]

Just now, TheVerySpecialOne said:

Lack of yellow card highlights.

 

Btw, after playing a bit more I concluded that I don't like the new UI and the course FM has taken in that regard, give me spreadsheets, intuitive lists where I can quickly find info and data I want instead of data spread all over the screen to mimic the look of the locker room/press conference rom.

Ahhh. Apologies. It's early here. 

[WHUkain21]

20 hours ago, Jack Joyce said:

Just to address a few things here:

1.  Having the 3rd best defence in the league as West Ham is very unrealistic and you shouldn't expect to replicate that with every team, especially when managing a team two divisions lower without adapting your tactic.

2. It's absolutely possible to not score a free kick goal in a single season. Multiple teams do this every year, and free direct free kick goals on general are statistically fairly rare. One season is nowhere near enough sample data to draw a conclusion.

3. We run hundreds of soaks regularly to assess statistical balance across all leagues, and we're yet to see a season where no player in the top 5 leagues gets more than 20 goals. If you've actually seen this then report it on the bugs forum with a save game attachment.

4. One on one conversion in FM is very high and unchanged from beta. In real life a one on one opportunity contributes to around 35% of goals scored, with a 50% conversion rate. Our conversion rate is higher.

5. Just to reiterate - there were no changes to one on ones, passing, shooting etc at all from beta to live.

6. We don't just use stats to assess ME balance. We have multiple testers constantly playing matches, some of which are qualified coaches. We are working on a number of identified issues that we've assessed internally, but none were new issues from after the beta.

Cheers,

Jack

I just came to appologies. I gave a game more chance, i reacted with too much passion because like i said the game is huge part of my life.

I went from Beta save in Premier league to league 1 with Peterborough after full version so it was obvious that there is a huge difference in quality of players and game. I had a bad partnership in defence, and low quailty players so that was the reason why i dind't have these beautifull actions, passes, lobs, shots like in beta. I am in second season now after promotion and with 3 signing everything looks different and much better. The game is not easy like in beta and i respect that and love it, more competative league is always better and more interesting.

 

 

WELL DONE SI !!! sorry for my English if i made too many mistakes. We are close to one of the best ME ever.  Greetings from Serbia!

[Pav_Makarov]

13 minutes ago, Jimbokav1971 said:

Ahhh. Apologies. It's early here

Yeah, yeah I mean highlights. Bookings, unless they lead to a set-piece with a goalscoring chance are never shown as highlights and text message is super fast even on default speed, it's very easy to miss the moment when your player was booked. Moreover, if you click on it in "notable events" it will show you only how the ref shows the card, not what led to it, and with timeline removed you just can't review, what's wrong with your play. This is not game breaking, but surely changes the way I play.

Tackles, that lead to condition-lowering injuries are not shown as well, before we had animations of players taken away for a treatment and you knew what was wrong, now it's just "oh, hey why is this guy's condition is poor on minute 30? I guess he hurt himself somewhere, but I have no idea where"

I'm taking FM 21 as it is, but I don't like this

[The Solman]

10 hours ago, CaptCanuck said:

I think he's just fed up with the dressing room UI like the rest of us and buggered off.

I have to say it is very disorientating. I don't know why they changed it.

[SmurfDude]

"Were you pleased to see player X score for his country?"

"Were you pleased to see player X score for his country?"

"Were you pleased to see player X score for his country?"

"Were you pleased to see player X score for his country?"

"Were you pleased to see player X score for his country?"

"Were you pleased to see player X score for his country?"

...and on and on and on it goes

Yes of course i was happy they scored, why wouldn't I be?  Shut up already.

 

The media aspect of FM is so utterly drab and pointless. I know it mirrors the tedium of real life, but the beauty of a video game is you can pick and choose the bits that are fun and leave out the stuff that isn't. Keep that in mind when developing your video game. 

[hungmn]

You can always ignore it, don't need to response every time

[SebastianRO]

16 minutes ago, hungmn said:

You can always ignore it, don't need to response every time

In theory yes, you can just ignore it, but it's still clutter in your inbox and an extra emai you have to click on and that's not much fun.

[StewG]

16 hours ago, ray27 said:

Hoping a bug, its only small thing but just enjoy replays sloqed, is my only real gripe with game, the more I play am enjoying it more

It has re-appeared in preferences for me since the last update. Still not available on the match UI though.

[Jimbokav1971]

I must admit, (and perhaps I am a bit dim), but it wasn't immediately obvious to me that the player boxes arranged in a sort of semi-circle around me were to simulate the dressing room physical environment. 

I thought initially that it was just bugged and wasn't meant to be like that and then thought it was 2 columns of players with Team Leaders across the top in the middle and only later on did I realise that it was a dressing room.

When you hear Managers speak, (top level as well as non-league managers), they tell us again and again that they have very little interaction in the period just preceding a game and more often than not it's vocal Team Leaders who will be the voices heard. There might be very basic instructions given to individuals, but the idea of players being motivated by external sources is a bit of a misnomer. 

I played rugby rather than football, but the process is still the same. You have done the prep work and in the period immediately prior to the game it's up to the individual to prepare themselves. Some do this my shouting and getting themselves pumped up, but increasingly, (in my experience), players often tended to just prefer positive visualisation and a short period of quiet contemplation, (often with music or other audio aids), to get themselves in the right frame of mind. (The physical demands of rugby are different to that of football and it does take a certain mindset).

I didn't want anyone talking to me about anything in the 30 mins prior to a game and when someone did talk to me, there was little chance in me taking in any information that I was given. We had done the run-through, (usually on Thursday night or during the warm-up), and this was my time now. I didn't want anyone talking to me or interacting with me in any way. I just wanted to be left alone. 

Giving tactical instructions to a team in the 30 mins prior to starting a game is not something that I recognise at all. 

I'm not saying that everyone is like me, but I also don't recognise what FM21 is showing us as a fair reflection of a pre-match changing room. I'm not saying that it's easy to replicate by the way. I just think that by trying to be so specific, they have stopped you "imagining" what is happening and moved to showing you something that I don't think would be happening. 

Edited December 3, 2020 by Jimbokav1971

[Bakiano]

47 minutes ago, SmurfDude said:

"Were you pleased to see player X score for his country?"

"Were you pleased to see player X score for his country?"

"Were you pleased to see player X score for his country?"

"Were you pleased to see player X score for his country?"

"Were you pleased to see player X score for his country?"

"Were you pleased to see player X score for his country?"

...and on and on and on it goes

Yes of course i was happy they scored, why wouldn't I be?  Shut up already.

 

The media aspect of FM is so utterly drab and pointless. I know it mirrors the tedium of real life, but the beauty of a video game is you can pick and choose the bits that are fun and leave out the stuff that isn't. Keep that in mind when developing your video game. 

The problem here with these one-question interviews is that you need to click it to attend and then give your answer.

 

Why not just give me answers in the inbox and I will click it. Now I just ignore it.

[DartsFM]

So has the newgen bug definitely been fixed as I still see people reporting it as an issue on here? Really don't want to continue my save if it's still a major problem..

Edited December 3, 2020 by DartsFM

[StewG]

The football my team is playing now that I have my tactic settled and a bit of cohesion is fantastic to watch, one touch pass and move all over the place.

Once the creases are ironed out this should be the best version of FM ever.

[hungmn]

20 minutes ago, DartsFM said:

So has the newgen bug definitely been fixed as I still see people reporting it as an issue on here? Really don't want to continue my save if it's still a major problem..

I have my doubt too. I have a feeling this issue needs a few tweaking here and there before they find the correct balance. I'm holding my save

[Johnny Ace]

39 minutes ago, StewG said:

It has re-appeared in preferences for me since the last update. Still not available on the match UI though.

I did not know this!! Sweet

[Pasonen]

1 hour ago, WHUkain21 said:

I had a bad partnership in defence, and low quailty players so that was the reason why i dind't have these beautifull actions, passes, lobs, shots like in beta.

Maybe there's still some information that can be used from your breakdown. I think how low morale play is displayed in ME got too big scale. Can't really offer any examples at this second but anyway it might be that high morale performance is displayed too entertaining compared to very low morale or vice versa.

Edited December 3, 2020 by Pasonen

[FrazT]

@fabiogabriel  I have explained this to you already, so please do not spam the forums with the same comments

[craiigman]

Look at left wing Rowe on the pitch and then on the bottom. Why is the heart/fitness at different levels? My eyes are not trained to look at the bottom so I look at the pitch, but clearly it's wrong...

 

edit: It does update eventually but there should not be a difference between the two.

Edited December 3, 2020 by craiigman

[Dagenham_Dave]

3 hours ago, Pav_Makarov said:

Yeah, yeah I mean highlights. Bookings, unless they lead to a set-piece with a goalscoring chance are never shown as highlights and text message is super fast even on default speed, it's very easy to miss the moment when your player was booked. Moreover, if you click on it in "notable events" it will show you only how the ref shows the card, not what led to it, and with timeline removed you just can't review, what's wrong with your play. This is not game breaking, but surely changes the way I play.

 

I know it's not ideal, and there should be a timeline, but when you click on the yellow card and the highlight starts, click the rewind 10 seconds button and it'll show you what happened, or keep clicking to go back in 10 second stages. 

[Sharkn20]

18 minutes ago, craiigman said:

Look at left wing Rowe on the pitch and then on the bottom. Why is the heart/fitness at different levels? My eyes are not trained to look at the bottom so I look at the pitch, but clearly it's wrong...

You should report it as a bug.

[StewG]

18 hours ago, MatthewS17 said:

Getting rather sick of moments like these. Defenders just blatantly vacating positions. Why is Lindelof on the edge of the area? Why is Wan-Bissaka there too? Lindelof doesn't seem to have any instruction at all that he needs to get back to defend.

Why is the entire team so deformed and erratic??? It's not a counter attack so there was plenty time to get back into shape. There was absolutely no reason that Lindelof and Wan-Bissaka or Maguire(Right, 5) should be where they are. Telles and Fred are on top of the same player ffs.

 

There seems to be a genuine problem with reactions, in that most of everything seems to happen after the ball has already been played or the phase has already ended. In another match, I watched a ball bounce twice in between my centre backs, them still continuing to move in the opposite direction, and a player rush past them onto the ball, and only then did they start running in the direction of the ball, by which it is too late. 

These types of errors have been very prevalent in my save so far.

Just looks like the usual standard of Man United defending to me 

[hungmn]

5 minutes ago, StewG said:

Just looks like the usual standard of Man United defending to me 

It's even worse IRL so if the bug is that they tuned it down too much in fact

 

[Chris2509]

On 29/11/2020 at 01:34, Chris2509 said:

I wish VAR moments in game were less predictable.

Players appeal for offside, camera moves laterally to the ref = you know for a 100% it will be disallowed.

There's never a situation where a VAR review actually approves a questionable goal.

 

Could have added a lot more tension if there was.

The only part where it was implemented nicely is penalty reviews, which keep you clueless until the decision.

 

Has this been changed?

I think I've just had the first situation where a VAR review for a possible offside ended up awarding the goal.

[goranm]

52 minutes ago, Chris2509 said:

Has this been changed?

I think I've just had the first situation where a VAR review for a possible offside ended up awarding the goal.

I was thinking you must be that one in a million where VAR awards a goal, but after I read you comment, literally in the next match VAR allowed a goal for me.

[Pav_Makarov]

1 hour ago, Dagenham_Dave said:

keep clicking to go back in 10 second stages. 

Oh wow, didn't know that, thank you.

It's wonderful, how we alltogether help each other navigate through this UI

[CFuller]

12 hours ago, CaptCanuck said:

I've been too much of a Buzz Killington, time to upload a couple clips of those neat through ball goals the Alzete to Connolly connection has gotten for me!

Righty-ho clip recorded and this promising and familiar dialog pops up. That's as far as we get.

 Can someone help me out finding this video stuff in FM20, but in FM21 please :-) I searched on 'clip recorded' and didn't find anything

I'm having the same problem and it's so frustrating. If I want to capture a highlight to share with others, I either have to make a GIF or fiddle around on another program like OBS - neither of which is ideal.

I reported this as a bug just before the full release and didn't get a reply. Of course, I don't expect the developers to respond to every bug report (though they've generally been quick and honest to respond to other bugs I've reported). Even so, it's a pretty significant issue if you can record a match highlight but cannot find it afterwards, and I hope it's addressed soon.

I've already written about how much I dislike the changes made to reviewing past matches. I'm only just getting to grips with the analysis tools, but I still miss the timebar greatly. I also wish that you could have two panels in the middle of the screen when looking at past matches (instead of one large one), so I could have both team line-ups or team ratings side-by-side.

I'm also still very concerned about the newgen issues - not just with them not generating in inactive countries, but also with user-managed teams getting older youth intakes than AI teams in some nations. It's put me off starting a long-term save until they're fixed.

But I don't want to sound like I dislike FM21. All those issues aside, I'm actually really enjoying it. In terms of the match engine and the game's stability, it's the best version of FM yet, in my opinion. I'm still having a fun time on my beta save with Rennes and am happy to carry on with that for a bit longer while SI look into the newgen bugs.

And there are always some tiny 'attention to detail' bits I really like. You know how you can fine your players for poor performances? Well, you can't do that if you gave the team an "unlucky" or "you did your best" team talk after the minute. I think that's pretty cool and stops you contradicting yourself... unless it's a bug and there are some cases where you could realistically do this?

Edited December 3, 2020 by CFuller

[Tonton_Zola]

The thing that I keep coming back to in my head around SI + FM21 concerns effective/optimal deployment of resources...

I am struggling to understand why you'd have a team working for (presumably) the best part of a year on adjustments to  aspects of the UI that were in no way "problems in need of a solution." 

At the heart of this, I've noticed, is a sudden interest in building visual environments as backgrounds: the office, the press room, the dressing room, the boardroom etc.
Where has this come from? And why build + render in an apparent graphical engine (presumably at greater cost to resources) than simply using a licensed stock / purpose-shot photograph (or set of photographs)?
This is a total headscratcher to me. Did this need emerge from market research? Do they have a vision for building an entirely graphical environment a la Ultimate Soccer Manager back in the mid 90's? 

I sense it's this arrival of graphical 'spaces' that - poorly integrated with the textual world of the game - contributes to these moments of what I would call cognitive dissonance. 
This is a posh way of saying, "hold on, where am I?" "where am i looking? "is this 'my' perspective?" "are the boxes where the journalists are?" "is this my eye-view, or a camera view?"

From a design and user-experience point of view, this is highly, highly problematic.
More alarmingly, it falls disappointingly short of what you'd expect from a product that is now a serial international top-seller. 

----

My wider point is this - what is informing SI's development strategy? 

Are they close enough to their customers? What is the roadmap for future development? What drives emphasis in certain areas, and neglect of others? Is SI focusing on the 'right' areas? 

I wish my instinctive answers to the above were more positive than they are...

 

 

 

[Leave58]

Just to add to the topic of matchday UI, the fact that you can still see the 'S' in tactics when you expand the tactics window is minor but really lazy.

[Tonton_Zola]

3 minutes ago, Leave58 said:

Just to add to the topic of matchday UI, the fact that you can still see the 'S' in tactics when you expand the tactics window is minor but really lazy.

hate to say it - but there are too many examples of that kind of thing across the game. Have you tried FM Draft? It comes over as very 'sloppy'!!

[Double Indemnity]

6 minutes ago, Tonton_Zola said:

I sense it's this arrival of graphical 'spaces' that - poorly integrated with the textual world of the game - contributes to these moments of what I would call cognitive dissonance. 
This is a posh way of saying, "hold on, where am I?" "where am i looking? "is this 'my' perspective?" "are the boxes where the journalists are?" "is this my eye-view, or a camera view?"

From a design and user-experience point of view, this is highly, highly problematic.

Strongly agree.

FM21's interface changes make it harder for me to find the information I need, more laborious to take the actions I want to take, and actively work against my immersion at every turn. There are ways to add color, visual interest, and immerse the player in their (highly specific!) football manager universe without imposing stale, repetitive, ugly, full-screen 3D scenes that actively detract from what I'm trying to understand and accomplish.

I know people have joked about the game being "spreadsheet simulator" in the past, but spreadsheets are incredibly efficient and user-friendly ways of presenting information. Lists are readable. User interface that works from left to right and top to bottom with clear headings respects how humans process information, at least in the West. Tooltips, keyboard shortcuts, and consistent visual cues (and sounds, which the game completely neglects) help users learn your interface. Having a consistent visual and iconographic language, consistent prompts, and consistent layout helps users navigate new and unfamiliar screens faster and with less frustration. Providing more options for users to tailor and customize what information they see and how it's presented helps overcome any impediments they may have. The best screen in the game is the Squad screen because it provides a ton of customization options and filters and is, at heart, a fancy spreadsheet. (Although, after years of bug reports and user complaints, SI still has not addressed the many bugs and quirks of custom columns...)

It honestly feels like someone high up at SI is forcing this direction on the larger team. It's such a wild misstep for a series that's always had pretty decent and unobtrusive UI/UX.

[Tonton_Zola]

6 minutes ago, Double Indemnity said:

Strongly agree.

FM21's interface changes make it harder for me to find the information I need, more laborious to take the actions I want to take, and actively work against my immersion at every turn. There are ways to add color, visual interest, and immerse the player in their (highly specific!) football manager universe without imposing stale, repetitive, ugly, full-screen 3D scenes that actively detract from what I'm trying to understand and accomplish.

I know people have joked about the game being "spreadsheet simulator" in the past, but spreadsheets are incredibly efficient and user-friendly ways of presenting information. Lists are readable. User interface that works from left to right and top to bottom with clear headings respects how humans process information, at least in the West. Tooltips, keyboard shortcuts, and consistent visual cues (and sounds, which the game completely neglects) help users learn your interface. Having a consistent visual and iconographic language, consistent prompts, and consistent layout helps users navigate new and unfamiliar screens faster and with less frustration. Providing more options for users to tailor and customize what information they see and how it's presented helps overcome any impediments they may have. The best screen in the game is the Squad screen because it provides a ton of customization options and filters and is, at heart, a fancy spreadsheet. (Although, after years of bug reports and user complaints, SI still has not addressed the many bugs and quirks of custom columns...)

It honestly feels like someone high up at SI is forcing this direction on the larger team. It's such a wild misstep for a series that's always had pretty decent and unobtrusive UI/UX.

none of us can be privy to the conversations at SI towers, but - to me, as an end user - it just doesn't feel 'thought through' somehow. 

And even forgetting the strategy for one moment, the execution of that strategy is not where it needs to be. Those backgrounds are stale, lifeless, generic and non-immersive! Why not do a 3-day photo shoot across a number different types of manager offices and then hook that into a bit of metadata in the game (e.g. club status + location)? Would just be SO much better. Instead, somebody built a 3D render that looks fit for a lost game on Atari Jaguar?!

Edited December 3, 2020 by Tonton_Zola

[Pav_Makarov]

PEOPLE!

I've found old circles of position familiarity. They FORGOT to remove them from one place. Wanna guess where?

[Johnny Ace]

2 minutes ago, Pav_Makarov said:

PEOPLE!

I've found old circles of position familiarity. They FORGOT to remove them from one place. Wanna guess where?

Where?

There are skins out there that show them anyway 

[Pav_Makarov]

Just now, Johnny Ace said:

Where?

Player instruction page, top row if you want to change his role from there

[KlaaZ]

50 minutes ago, Pav_Makarov said:

PEOPLE!

I've found old circles of position familiarity. They FORGOT to remove them from one place. Wanna guess where?

Gonna log this as a bug now. 

[kiwityke]

1 hour ago, Double Indemnity said:

 It honestly feels like someone high up at SI is forcing this direction on the larger team. It's such a wild misstep for a series that's always had pretty decent and unobtrusive UI/UX.

That would be Miles...I'm sure. He seems to have a massive obsession with promoting new but awful UI as brilliant on his Twitter.

He was a big fan of the new staff responsibilities page(s) last year. Another baffling change to something that wasn't broken but absolutely is now due to the awful layout of the UI.

[CaptCanuck]

1 hour ago, Tonton_Zola said:

none of us can be privy to the conversations at SI towers, but - to me, as an end user - it just doesn't feel 'thought through' somehow. 

And even forgetting the strategy for one moment, the execution of that strategy is not where it needs to be. Those backgrounds are stale, lifeless, generic and non-immersive! Why not do a 3-day photo shoot across a number different types of manager offices and then hook that into a bit of metadata in the game (e.g. club status + location)? Would just be SO much better. Instead, somebody built a 3D render that looks fit for a lost game on Atari Jaguar?!

Agree, agree, agree. the backgrounds look like some 1990s RPG video game and not a dressing room. I just don't get it at all.

The use case is - enable manager to influence player morale, with the goal of having boosted morale improve match performance, leading to better play, better results, and more enjoyment for the manager watching.

It isn't make manager feel like he has his players around him in a semi circle and ready for a good chat, no one is clammering for that, heck almost all these interactions can be delegated for that reason.

I tried another run of matches and got the start of the regular season and now there is another all over the shop window to get through before the match starts. I guess it is supposed to act as a prompt to set your stall out before the match, but again it's just clunky AF.

[orlyzao]

1 hour ago, kiwityke said:

That would be Miles...I'm sure. He seems to have a massive obsession with promoting new but awful UI as brilliant on his Twitter.

He was a big fan of the new staff responsibilities page(s) last year. Another baffling change to something that wasn't broken but absolutely is now due to the awful layout of the UI.

You can tell by that fact that he's obsessed over people calling FM a spreadsheet simulator, even if it's nothing more than just a lighthearted joke. [1][2][3][4][5] 

They also revamped the preferences tab last year for no good reason and called it a feature. It looks worse now imo, a popout with huge waste of lateral space, although I should add that the search function definitely came in handy. But if we look at the preferences tab in FM14 can you guys honestly tell me it did not look cleaner than what we have now? Obviously not a big issue, but why change something that was perfectly fine?