FM23 Headline Features Revealed

[grade]

Despite my criticisms, I want to give a shout to all personnel that actually implemented these features, since we all know how hard you work to do this.

 

7 hours ago, 2feet said:

Full HD is 1080, not 4k.

Not everyone can afford a fancy new phone.

Lots of people play FM on old laptops so they have to cater to that audience.

That is not how youtube works. If you post higher res video, it provides lower res for people who have low res screens.

[saihtam]

I baffled on some opinnion that international footbal gives nothing and is boring. Is it not the biggest stage in football? Isnt there something we all wait for every 4 years? Maybe the mechanics seem ofcourse a bit boring compared to league gameplay, but this is the place SI should be doing some immersion stuff. Build up special scenario for WC or big events. Make it feel achivment, make it feel special. God damn have atleast different trophy celebration, not just reskin the colors of the shirt....

Some of the features are good to have maybe. Lets see how AI will use these new negotiation tactics. Think it will just give another upper hand to player and AI transfers and managment still is bad.
Other features feel like patch. Honestly there are games that update animations, stability, some balances etc, they do them as patches or some smaller DLCs that add these smaller "headline features" that we must pay full price. And after full price payed, we are in the same limbo that has issues at the begginning of the game and need to wait their assigned timeframe patch to get fixed( Often issues from previous version releases are popping out to next release...)

About stagnation of FM in longer run.

I feel like a broken record. I have not been very active anymore recent years but brought out this few years ago. Still feel root causes come from the specs being very low and SI riding on it( i have heard enough that they see specs that most users use, it is not a reason if we bring it out every year). You are limited running and depending on older hardware. Some legacy and SI flows of working and processes seems to be holding things back. I honestly hope there are many developers that want the best for this game series and to achive many goals. It just feels... empty. Some tweaks and updates have made things better but looking at the past year I cant seem to shake the feeling that the features and updates between new releases could have easliy been patches, small DLC addition with roster update and smaller feature added. Yes SI cant add DLC as features and lock them out for some people as the ME is complex and cant single out things like this. The view is just these "headline features" dont feel big enough to be sepereate full priced releases. 

 

If anyone interested in the old post and compare some specs from long FM to this day the post is here. As we can see nothing has changed in spec wise from fm20 vs fm23. I had high hopes when heard about going to 64bit. But feels this had minimal effect and maybe SI just bought some more time forthemself to run on this.
 

 

Edited September 30, 2022 by saihtam

[phnompenhandy]

9 hours ago, turgi said:

Loved the squad planner bit. I can finally stop buying notebooks like a primary school student.

I'm a futurist, me. I make my notes on Microsoft Notepad.

[andu1]

I would love for them to get in details as to how they Improved the AI managers.

[redders1977]

For me it's all about immersion. So while I'm happy with the match engine and everything else, it's time for overhaul of the stadiums etc. I don't necessarily mean exact replicas but if a stand in real life is 1 tier, make it 1 tier.

Have the fans doing limbs when a goal goes in, instead of just arms in the air. (and on occasions not even moving). Anything to replicate the actual match day experience inside a ground. 

That being said I've already pre ordered. 

[STaphouse]

Graphics still look like they're from the 90's, there's genuinely no excuse for this now. It's something that should have been upgraded years ago and I still don't know why they can't be bothered. The graphics are a joke for a game in 2022. 

It's being released weeks (days?) before the World Cup and International management is still going to be the same stale experience. 

Just looks like another reskin. 

[KillYourIdols]

I'm quite looking forward to the additions. ANYTHING new is welcomed and TBH, I would have probably brought it anyway for the sake of £30. Nothing Groundbreaking, but that seems to come in cycles for SI. Will play the a*se off of it for many months as always. However, there are a few things IMO, that have been neglected for too long, mainly Set piece tactics and International Management.

Also, I'm old, So give me WIBWOB back

 

 

 

[KillYourIdols]

9 hours ago, turgi said:

Loved the squad planner bit. I can finally stop buying notebooks like a primary school student.

I have more notepads lying around my desk then my 2 School-age children. I must look like a child, furiously scribbling away. My Assistant Manager (Wife) has no interest in what's happening at Colchester United either

[xkvicd]

For me the changes are actually quite nice:

• I don't care about UEFA stuff

• match engine update is always nice

• as someone who likes to play deep into saves for almost the whole year with breaks I think that the manager timeline is a nice addition. I often forget about the players I had and and had to search them through best XI. If there will be stats and milestones it will be a nice step forward.

• planner - I usually made my own. Having one in game is great. Here I would like to add that I hope it will include branching, i.e., "squad next year if I get promoted" or "squad next year if I stay in my league" (or getting continental football or not, whatever can change recruitment)

• I'm little worried about balance of fans reaction and the "new" scouting system.

It seems that next year version with its features is made for long save enjoyers. There is nothing new for Manchester City fans who play two seasons. This is a nice change compared with the last few versions.

Edited September 30, 2022 by xkvicd

[(sic)]

1 hour ago, CFuller said:

I can understand why some people are underwhelmed. That's fine, but I must ask - after 30 years, are there many groundbreaking new features SI could add at this point? Updated graphics (which could alienate customers who can't afford a new PC every year), women's football (fingers crossed for FM24), but what else? SI probably don't have much further where they can take the series, and a serious competitor in the market would not change that.

 

Let me say I do agree with your points, and I've also expressed mixed feelings. There are some good features, and QoL improvements.

We don't need 'groundbreaking' features each year. But there are a lot of things that could be improved. Tactical creator, ME, Match Graphics, game engine, int. management, UI/UX. Those are just some of the things that need revamps/large improvements, that I could think of off the top of my head. Tactical creator and ME just lack a lot of things, I could go make a whole post about this, though many have contributed with suggestions. Many things from real life tactics, and player movements, positioning, etc. are simply not doable, or hardcoded so that we cannot influence it much.

Match Graphics look worse than they did in 2017 (when they peaked), there's no excuse for going backwards. Besides, they've looked almost the same ever since 3D was introduced. We've seen some progress until 2018, when it went backwards.
Customers don't need to buy a new PC every year, I don't know where that comes from. Why should they cater to people with 10+ year old laptops? Well, the answer why, is probably money. Are you using a phone that's 10+ years old? The harsh truth is, players need to get with the times. I'm sure many would buy new laptops anyways, if FM increased the requirements.
There needs to be an update on that part, hell, the game engine doesn't even take full advantage of the modern CPUs that have more than 2 cores. Again, there needs to be a revamp, if they want to improve the ME, the graphics, the required specs need to go up. Instead, they've been the same for years. We're not asking for them to improve graphics and increase requirements each year, but a one off revamp that improves the visuals, and in turn raises the requirements, needs to happen soon... It should have happened already, we're in 2022. How long do they plan on doing this, 2030? Should people be able to play on 20 year old laptops at that point? They need to take a hit in order to improve the game in the long term, that's the reality.

The UI/UX seems to be improving in the last couple of years, even FM23 looks a tiny bit better than FM22 from what I've seen so far. But it's still at its core the same thing we've had for decades at this point. Again, a larger revamp needs to happen, rather than tiny bits and improvements each year.
It's the same with Tactical Creator, we have some great features coming up on the defensive/out of possession side, but they've stopped there. They should've just completely revamped, or massively improved the other areas as well (in possession especially, and in transition). Instead we might get something in the coming years that addresses the other parts. 

But maybe I'm asking too much. I just feel that charging the full price for small, incremental improvements, is a bit much. It's 50 euros each year for me, and sure, I do get value from it. But not because of the new features, but because the core game of Football Manager is entertaining. I have mixed feelings about this as well. The SI have found the market, players who would be willing to spend 50e on a game each year, regardless of what new features it had. A lot of players would just pay 50e for a database update probably.

A serious competitor would be amazing for everyone, and I wish some big studio would make their own football management game. It would just show how you could do things differently, in a more modern way. FM itself is at its core a game that's 20+ years old at this point.

[forameuss]

Is there a text list of the changes anywhere in this thread or elsewhere?  Much better than being forced to watch through a youtube video

[KillYourIdols]

6 minutes ago, forameuss said:

Is there a text list of the changes anywhere in this thread or elsewhere?  Much better than being forced to watch through a youtube video

A half decent, succinct list here.

[Neil Brock]

1 hour ago, grade said:

Despite my criticisms, I want to give a shout to all personnel that actually implemented these features, since we all know how hard you work to do this.

 

That is not how youtube works. If you post higher res video, it provides lower res for people who have low res screens.

I'm a bit lost on your comments here - the features video is in 1080p. Unless I'm missing something in relation to what you're saying? 

[andu1]

I am curious if the newgen AI managers template has been improved. SInce i usually do 1 or 2 long term saves per FM I tend to notice that the game drops a bit in difficulty when the real managers are replaced by generated ones. 
I think they generated ones are lacking tactical variation, preferences and their attributes are lacking most of the time... Compared to the starting managers that is.

[(sic)]

1 minute ago, Neil Brock said:

I'm a bit lost on your comments here - the features video is in 1080p. Unless I'm missing something in relation to what you're saying? 

My guess is they're talking about Youtube's compression. When uploading a video in 1080p, Youtube compresses it a lot, and the video loses quality. 

If the video is edited and uploaded in 4K, it looks way better, and 1080p resolution looks much better in turn. 

1080p video bitrate is 8 Mbps, while 4k video bitrate is around 35-34Mbps. Higher bitrate = better quality.

[forameuss]

7 minutes ago, KillYourIdols said:

A half decent, succinct list here.

Many thanks.  Hate this new trend of absolutely everything needing to be a video.

So in terms of what's there...

• Squad planner - remains to be seen how it works in practice, but looks a good addition.  Nothing you can't do elsewhere if you really wanted to, but nice to have it integrated.
• Scouting in general - not really too exciting personally, it's one of the things I charge through without getting into much detail
• Recruitment meetings - nice to see them developed a bit more.  I liked their addition but agree they get a bit formulaic.  The game badly needs some chaos thrown in at times in a lot of areas, so this is a start
• Match Engine - *shrug* hard to get excited about it much when you're actually playing, let alone when it's words on a screen.  Remains to be seen
• UEFA Licenses - big who caresies
• Sleeve patches - bigger who caresies
• Licensed music - a muted but still big who caresies
• Supporter Confidence - a good addition, but depends how it works.  The social media stuff could've been interesting but ended up nonsensical.  Can't wait to see fans take a wild swing over something inconsequential...the supporter profile stuff does look promising though.  There's already a number of data points for fans that don't really seem to mean much at all.  Hopefully this changes
• Dynamic Manager Timeline - on the face of it, something that could be really really good.  I was pretty active in the FMCU board, and FM can be absolutely brilliant as an aid to tell stories.  For this kind of stuff, having a timeline sort of thing in the game could be brilliant, and could be the sort of additional context that the game DESPERATELY needs.  I'm cautiously optimistic though, because I think it might end up being a bit rubbish

In isolation it doesn't seem like much has been added, but in FM terms it's an...OK list I guess.  As always, the real feel for how much has changed and what it means for the game won't be seen until it's actually released and the whole product is experienced.

[Peter G]

I really do think people's expectations are way too high when it comes to games like this. Other yearly releases suffer the same, like FIFA. They're based around sports and there's only so many editions you can do before everything starts looking the same due to limitations in what's even possible. You're not going to get massive ground-breaking features every year but you'll get ones that update and better the game.  People need to be much more realistic. FM23 is, currently, available for £31. Is that really too much?

Edited September 30, 2022 by Peter G

[DP]

Surely international management has only ever been a ‘bonus’ in FM? Going back to cm2 you could only start as an international manager (uk and Ireland) if you entered the name of the current manager when you started the game (it was a cheat/Easter egg). 
 

The game isn’t really optimised for people to play solely as an international manager (and it would be hard to do that and keep everyone’s interest) so it’s designed to be streamlined so you can manage alongside your club. Which is fine imo. 

[KillYourIdols]

1 minute ago, DP said:

...you could only start as an international manager (uk and Ireland) if you entered the name of the current manager when you started the game ...

 

Showing your Age

[(sic)]

2 minutes ago, Peter G said:

I really do think people's expectations are way too high when it comes to games like this. Other yearly releases suffer the same, like FIFA. They're based around sports and there's only so many editions you can do before everything starts looking the same due to limitations in what's even possible. You're not going to get massive ground-breaking features every year but you'll get ones that update and better the game.  People need to be much more realistic. FM23 is, currently, available for £31. Is that really too much?

Good for you, it's 50 euros for me. 

Besides, you're missing the point. There is so much more that could be done. Yet the game looks like it did 10-20 years ago in a lot of areas.

[DP]

4 minutes ago, KillYourIdols said:

Showing your Age

Terry Venables 

👀

[KillYourIdols]

6 minutes ago, DP said:

Terry Venables 

👀

Wait till these "Whippersnappers" find out about Clive Tyldsley on Commentary (Loosely called Commentary)

[forameuss]

19 minutes ago, DP said:

Surely international management has only ever been a ‘bonus’ in FM? Going back to cm2 you could only start as an international manager (uk and Ireland) if you entered the name of the current manager when you started the game (it was a cheat/Easter egg). 
 

The game isn’t really optimised for people to play solely as an international manager (and it would be hard to do that and keep everyone’s interest) so it’s designed to be streamlined so you can manage alongside your club. Which is fine imo. 

And isn't at all to me.  That is how it is but isn't how it should be.  

[DP]

7 minutes ago, forameuss said:

And isn't at all to me.  That is how it is but isn't how it should be.  

I think it’s completely fair though. The game is about club management - the studio has made the decision to focus on that and have international management as a ‘side hussle’. It’s not really feasible, for most, to play solely as an international manager. 
 

You may not like it but that’s where we are. 

[paddypower]

1 hour ago, (sic) said:

Customers don't need to buy a new PC every year, I don't know where that comes from. Why should they cater to people with 10+ year old laptops? Well, the answer why, is probably money. Are you using a phone that's 10+ years old? The harsh truth is, players need to get with the times. I'm sure many would buy new laptops anyways, if FM increased the requirements.

They can very easily keep both sets of customers happy by introducing a proper 3d which requires modern gpus, while keeping the current version as "classic mode". Exactly what they did when they introduced 3d over the dots.

Customers won't need to upgrade laptops if they keep that feature turned off.

[KillYourIdols]

I'd like to see International management improved, for sure, but Like @DP says, the vast majority of the game as we know it is catered for week in, week out football. International management is, for the large part, Sporadic outside of Scouting for players. Not sure there is much else they could add that would make it terribly more indepth, certainly not to a point it would even be close to club football. Its a nice distraction, but not much more than that IMO.

Edited September 30, 2022 by KillYourIdols

[forameuss]

4 minutes ago, DP said:

I think it’s completely fair though. The game is about club management - the studio has made the decision to focus on that and have international management as a ‘side hussle’. It’s not really feasible, for most, to play solely as an international manager. 
 

You may not like it but that’s where we are. 

The game is called Football Manager, not Club Manager.  If International Football is an avenue you can go down, then it should be far better featured than it is now.  

[xkvicd]

Will FM23 support stadia?

[paddypower]

I'm hoping with the lack of real new features, SI have finally decided to focus on bug fixing this version. It's something I had complained about previously - there are long standing bugs in the game that really should be the priority. Hopefully we get a really solid version of the game this year that they can use as a strong base for the new set of new features.

[xkvicd]

1 minute ago, forameuss said:

The game is called Football Manager, not Club Manager.  If International Football is an avenue you can go down, then it should be far better featured than it is now.  

Need for Speed is about car racing and not drug addiction.

[marioNOW]

Reviewed the new features, really mixed opinion.

Squad planner is a good main addition (although this could be almost done in the Positional Depth Chart in previous editions to some degree, except for the future planning. Still this is the main "wow" feature for this year's edition and it says a lot. 

Really curious about Recruitment revamp part. It is actually a revamp or just the previous Knowledge percentages were reskinned to the 4 stages of knowledge? Are the scouts will "stick" to their assignment and not recommend me a bunch of 30yr old RBs from Argentina when they supposed to check Brasil u18 strikers? Or like in the previous editions team/match scouting is non-existent (e.g. scouts do not gain knowledge of the individual players who played on a specific match they supposed to watch). It is awfully familiar on how the "recruitment meetings" were introduced previously and how broken they were from the start. If they nest with the squad plenner properly, I would love to give more responsibility to chief scouts or DoF to actually streamline the scouting process... but this was non-functioning in previous iterations and absolute manual scouting (selecting each individual one-by-one to be watched) was the only option (e.g. it was impossible to scout the full u18s team from a big team as only if I selected the players from that squad for individual scouting did their knowledge % go up. If the scout watched the U18 league they participated or the match of the squad, % not went up. This was a game-breaking feature for me as my individual scouting/priorities list was cluttered with 100s of player each time I tried to get a rough estimate. Basically only the nation % knowledge and the scouting package mattered and not what league/match/team the scouts were watching. Will be testing this during the release to confirm if it is similar.

Match engine AI and animations are a must, basically this improvement is what makes the game sell annually (as database updates would be done by the community each year). Also the UEFA competition licenses are irrelevant for anyone, who plays the game with custom files as they solved this already. Obviously the music is good but because of the awful in-game sound effects everyone plays with sound off. Hoping for a QoL improvement announcement that they replaced all the in-game sound effects with someting more from the 21st century .  The draw "feature" is just an animated and better looking version of the previous draw screen (though you now see the pots).  

AI manager squad building, I will belive when I see the results. My guess that it will focus more on preferred formation and playstyle given a few template, but how the AI will approach squad building (big clubs hoarding wonderkids and not playing them and having 30+old washed up starting players only because of their world reputation) or the same manager appointments happening (Pep and Pool and Klopp at City). But in the end when they become 60-70, they will end up as elit scouts, sounds familiar?  

I do not miss international management overhaul, it is so little aspect of the game that it was way over-fluffed that "everybody wants that" because of the world cup. It is a nice additional touch next to club management, but it is never a main thing I would focus.

Supporter confidence will be overpowered I feel in advance. I doubt that the supporter number and groups will keep up with 15-20 year growth of a local club going up in division will scale up accordingly, 

Dynamic manager timeline is meh, it is the history tab with some additional "memories" but I guess it will be showing irrelevant things the game thinks is important to you. Like in the feature video the manager joined the club on 27th June and on 30th July it highlights a 6th youth player debutant marked as "Golden generation" - that I imagine was a random friendly match rotation result. Same problem with like the media interaction when in a CL final they tunnel interview you about a random 3rd division manager's "hot seat" or after winning 6th title in a row and they will still mention your 0-2 loss during your non-league club a major career milestone (obviously exaggarating here but you get the point). 

I am pessimistic because I base my expextations on the facts on how requested features (women football or youth coaching management  possibilities would be a game-changer for LLM, set piece creator overhaul, stadium visuals and scaling to club size) and bug fixes (media questions, broken player promises, anti-human AI transfers, 23-25 old player retirements instead of lowering their wage demand to play in a lower division) are still "being looked at" for years. But will check these out in gamepass to gain final conclusion. 

Edited September 30, 2022 by marioNOW

[DP]

8 minutes ago, forameuss said:

The game is called Football Manager, not Club Manager.  If International Football is an avenue you can go down, then it should be far better featured than it is now.  

It’s vastly obvious SI games are focused on club management, buying players, promotion/relegation etc. Short of spelling it out. The current situation with club management, in my opinion, is mostly fine. 
 

Far more pressing things for them to be getting right in the core of the game. 

[forameuss]

8 minutes ago, paddypower said:

I'm hoping with the lack of real new features, SI have finally decided to focus on bug fixing this version. It's something I had complained about previously - there are long standing bugs in the game that really should be the priority. Hopefully we get a really solid version of the game this year that they can use as a strong base for the new set of new features.

I wouldn't hold my breath.  You say "lack of real new features" but I'd say numbers wise, there's the same level of new features as there has been in previous years.  There's significant work in getting them into the game and playing nice with the larger codebase, then there's bugs that come out the back of that.  Then there's more major bugs left behind.  If you're talking about long-standing bugs that have been in years, I'd be amazed if too many of them were addressed.

 

[forameuss]

Just now, DP said:

It’s vastly obvious SI games are focused on club management, buying players, promotion/relegation etc. Short of spelling it out. The current situation with club management, in my opinion, is mostly fine. 
 

Far more pressing things for them to be getting right in the core of the game. 

Where did I say they weren't?  Their focus is on that.  I'm saying it shouldn't, particularly when the amount of work it would likely take to bring International management up a few levels is relatively small given how much it's been neglected.  What is "more pressing" is always going to be a massively subjective thing.

[Libertine13]

Like many others I'm disappointed at a lack of any Internarional management news (as yet). A part of the game that's been crying out for some fleshing out for a while.

Most new features in recent installments have been stuff that I can get by with skipping entirely (more clicks for very little in return) and it's only the ME improvements and behind the scenes stuff that's really had any effect on my playing experience. 

I don't think the "Headline Feature Reveals" are something that's ever aimed at an FM player like myself, but we all live in hope for big announcements to on certain parts of the game.

[FM1000]

Massively disappointed by these "new" features which are just old features bundles on one screen with new colors....

Just go back 10 years and look at those games and their new features, those were games where they really did added features.

With less staff I assume, I bet SI employees more people now than when they did then.

And stop with the nonsense that it's just a football game there is no more ideas for new features, or that people play this game on toasters....that is not an excuse!

FM2017 has better graphic then the current game!! Better stadiums too.

International management is dead, set piece creator is worse than the Championship Manager games but no, lets invest in woman football for the 5 people that want to play that..

I bet next year woman's football will be the main feature, more reasouces wasted instead of finally creating a Football Manager game that looks like it's been made in 2023..

[grade]

1 hour ago, Neil Brock said:

I'm a bit lost on your comments here - the features video is in 1080p. Unless I'm missing something in relation to what you're saying? 

It is now showing in Full HD.

Yesterday it was not. it was in 720p I checked. So something really happen.

[kentonizking]

3 hours ago, QWERTYOP said:

people like you 

Now who is lacking nuance?

Edited September 30, 2022 by kentonizking

[Lord Rowell]

24 minutes ago, FM1000 said:

Massively disappointed by these "new" features which are just old features bundles on one screen with new colors....

Just go back 10 years and look at those games and their new features, those were games where they really did added features.

With less staff I assume, I bet SI employees more people now than when they did then.

And stop with the nonsense that it's just a football game there is no more ideas for new features, or that people play this game on toasters....that is not an excuse!

FM2017 has better graphic then the current game!! Better stadiums too.

International management is dead, set piece creator is worse than the Championship Manager games but no, lets invest in woman football for the 5 people that want to play that..

I bet next year woman's football will be the main feature, more reasouces wasted instead of finally creating a Football Manager game that looks like it's been made in 2023..

Sorry you feel that way but I think we'll find the addition of women's football will be very popular and I for one can't wait to play it - also actually think its long overdue tbh. But glad SI are getting it ready now and if its the main feature in FM24 or FM25, it'll be one of the biggest single leaps forward the game has taken.

[QWERTYOP]

26 minutes ago, kentonizking said:

Now who is lacking nuance?

Lighten up pal. It’s unhealthy to pick fights out of nothing for no reason. 

[Piperita]

What I like

• Squad Planner. Adding custom rankings and future years to the old Squad Depth screen is a great additions for players like me. I tend to disagree with how the AI sees some players or tend to PPM some players to be utterly unusable in secondary roles. Now I can rank or exclude them to my liking. And see how Youth prospects develop compared to my expectations.
• Agents! My main gripe about FM22 is how often players start contract negotiations with non-negotiable release clauses. Now I can filter those out without having to negotiate weeks with their old clubs or (hopefully) without breaking squad happiness.
• Recruitment focus. It looks more streamlined. Maybe just because the devs don't play on potatoes but who knows? Here's just to hope the scouts are more intelligent in who they recommend. In 22 the new Recruitment Meetings way too often showed me players that were at most "Regular Starters" but demand quadruple the wages of my Star Players.
• The games seems to make another good jump regarding defensive play. A few new options available to us and the scenes shown looked promising for the most part. Considering the last years had considerable updates post-beta, I hope they find the "right" tweaks!

What I have hopes for

• Supporter Confidence. They are right. Fans are important to the life of a manager and so far they had been neglected. The attributes they spoke about are already in the editor, so time to make something with them! I hope they actually use them and not make them merely an updates social media page with some fluff text and interview questions. Make them relevant and find the right balance between "Creating new stories", "Creating new hardships/some relief", "Forming Club Identity" and "Adapting to the Circumstances.

What I'm okay with

• Licenses. Nice to have, especially for console players/players playing without any mods. 
• Timeline. Looks a bit small for a headline but good for AAR

What I miss/hope for in minor updates

• SET PIECES. The old system is so very lacking, it almost hurts at times. Especially that the routines can so easily break if you change your S11 or have to sub.
• Interviews/Press conferences. Not only get they boring after a while and I get away with hitting the same panel repeatedly in 98% of the cases, the conferences and their results often don't take into account the nation they take part in. Getting repeatedly asked about low possession (nobody cares and it is a valid method in the German metagame -- there even is an article about how low-possession teams are thriving), getting touchline bans for slightest criticism (There was much worse said in RL and afaik there was no such thing in the past), about whether or not to recall players (news flash: I literally can't!), inane questions about other teams or their players even when not playing them, and so on. Add relationships and opinions that hardly matter and it is just a taxing module. But at least my 3rd league team can no lose against Bayern due to a questionable penalty in the 118th minute without having to answer at least three questions about how bad we played and that we should have won that...
• More "Granularity" in expectations. I see this especially in cup-tournaments. The board demands to reach a certain level but fail is fail, whatever the opposition and however close I came. "Reach Quarter Final" is a realistic demand. I AM among the eight best teams in the nation. But if I play the second and third round against the best and second best team in the nation, respectively, it is no shame to fail that milestone -- We played with honor and the massive amounts of ticket sales make up for the lost price money between the stages.

Long Shot wish

• Custom stat views. We already have so many stats that are recorded. Why not give us players the option to create a few custom ones that are derived from them? There are a few ones that lack a "per 90 minutes" version (like CCC, Key passrs, mistakes leading to goals) and a few others I'd like to calculate (amount of fouls per card; different ratios between passes, possession and dribblings; CCC/Key passes, Key passes/passes...). Let us decide what additional info we need from the absolute stats.

Re. International management

 

Spoiler

• I'd like more exploration as well. Primarily because almost everything that makes the N11 interesting is something FM is currently lacking in. Player expectation management, player relationships, situational retirements, player stories, player experience, active poaching, more lasting morale management and fluctuation, influences from and to the team. And most importantly: Personality mattering!
  • Expectation management. We can control this to a degree with clubs as we are in charge who is eligible to play and how we fill our squad in depth with proper hierarchy. In national teams there can be a lot of classical team leaders, often way too man fighting for single positions. And ALL are eligible and all have expectations. The manager has to find a team and get these characters together or to force a hierarchy upon them. High reputation influential players that are not nominated or do not play should seek the press to complain, consider retirement from the N11 or rapidly lose opinion of a coach. Younger players that get pushed hard should rapidly win expectation/influence in their team as well.
  • Player relationships. Due to aforementioned mass of players with high expectations, there should be some consequences, depending on player personalities. If they are ambitious and have the right temperament and determination, they should push each other. Wrong temperament, high controversy and aggression could lead to rivalry. Low determination and pressure to losses of form or morale.
  • Situational retirements. We have some players who decide to retire if they lose their place in the team. But there should be more options. Players retiring at the top after winning something big or personal/team records. Players retiring from the N11 if they feel mistreated. Players coming back if the situation changes.
  • Player stories. World Cups and the Euros are big things. There are always stories, big and small, flying around. Be it new records or players making their debut early/late, hype trains and dramas, players getting injured just before the tournament, Cups "at home" and so on. Put them in focus and let players react to them according to their personality. Crumbling under pressure, getting pushed to succeed, expectations skyrocketing or falling hard resulting in massive shifts in morale.
  • Experience. Related to the classical "Wonderkid Syndrome". It makes little difference playing a squad full of 20 year olds (that some might even consider "too old already") or a team of 34 year olds. Stats being similar, the biggest difference is that the first team has many more years to come. Experience should matter. Be it a boost to the development of mental stats (that should continue to rise into old age), a boost to consistency and pressure (or other "personality traits), and naturally a boost to reputation and merchandising, particularly if the player debuted or made an impact in the N11 while at his current club.
  • Active poaching. There are plenty of dual-nationals that hardly get any focus. Give them more agency in their decisions. If they have no clear future, make them go to a "lesser" nation. Give us more options to convince them to switch. So far youth poaching happens late or automatically and is heavily dependent on...something. Save-scumming some interactions, there is little graspable logic and no "steps". You make an offer and a week later the player either comes or renews his contract. Give us better feedback and expectations.
  • Morale management and fluctuation. If you lead your team well and give some basic talks here and there, it is easy to keep your team high in spirits. There may be some downs but they hardly make an impact, however big they may be and vanish just as fast. But big decisions and situations should matter. Player struggling to find form after an injury, lasting goal droughts, unexpectedly missing a tournament or winning one should last a longer time and either reset the "base" for morale or otherwise influence a player in his development.  This is especially true for N11-management because there are lots of opportunities for such events triggering.
  • Influence from and to the team. If the team is successful, this should trickle down to the nation and its leagues (youth rating and merchandise?). If not, likewise. Press and board and fans should all be loud and influential. There is a saying in Germany about having 80 million head coaches and the expectations and "ideas" are really running rampant. The national press naturally has a more massive and personal interest, and the board is as much managing as politicking.

 

[oche balboa]

I hope they make changes to the FM Editor which makes it easier and more simple to create Leagues (In Basic/Advanced Mode) and has mentioned elsewhere a module of sorts where people can create a Euro/World Super League where it wouldn't crash your game in the future 

[andu1]

The one thing i care about in the whole game was a headline feature, Match AI and AI Managers .So i must be the only one who got excited about this feature.

I really don't care about any other fancy mechanic, just give me a challenging AI, updated ME to reflect real life football and I am sold.

[McClane29]

Was Champions League / Europa League music confirmed as being in the game with the new Uefa licence?

[Wizard boy]

12 minutes ago, andu1 said:

The one thing i care about in the whole game was a headline feature, Match AI and AI Managers .So i must be the only one who got excited about this feature.

I really don't care about any other fancy mechanic, just give me a challenging AI, updated ME to reflect real life football and I am sold.

There are more videos coming as well. 

[el_manayer]

Instead of the timeline, I would rather have the time bar during the matches back. At least, leave the player decide if whey want to play more "realistically" without it or with it. I often play FM while doing other stuff and sometimes I really need to go back and see what happened, and that I can't do it when it was always a possibility and all the info it is just there makes 0 sense.

[BuryBlade]

32 minutes ago, McClane29 said:

Was Champions League / Europa League music confirmed as being in the game with the new Uefa licence?

Yes; confirmed by Miles on Twitter. 

[johangod]

Does the squad planner and the order of players you have there, effect how the assistant will choose the lineup if you for example holiday over a match ?

 

Meaning, can I set my squad planner to the preference I'd like players to be played, and the assistant will follow that guideline ahead of his own judgement ?

[saiyaman]

Disappointed in what passes for a major feature these days.

I'll be waiting for news on Fm 24 next year.

[el_manayer]

So for me it goes like this:

* Squad planner: a nicer and more polished version of the already existing squad depth. Is that really a headline feature?

* More talks with agents: yeah... more of this is exactly what everybody asked....

* Timeline: a nicer representation of data that was already in the game... headline feature? really?

* Recruitment focus: looks really better than the current one because it is simplified and one can go faster over it. Again, is this a headline feature? Looks more like a skin.

* About the match engine, is something we can't really comment until playing the game. Let's hope it is a step forward and that the focus on the defensive play give the desirable results.

* Supporter confidence: I think it is a nice idea, and hope it is implemented in a fun way. The game is already bloated with useless boring stuff, so one more... please no. But I keep my hopes that this is going to be implemented in a nice way.

What people wants since 3 or 4 years ago:

* New set pieces creator! Current one is horrible, and has to be set everytime a minimal change is done in your tactic, which is just...dumb. This would be a proper headline feature guys.

* Overhaul of the tactic creation, more liberty here. I am personally fine with the current system if different play styles are actually possible.

* Smarter AI, at least in team building, which is really really necessary right now...

* Better graphics, both in 2d and 3d! Why stadiums look worse than in FM17, and the stands are directly omitted in 2d? We are talking about an iteration of the game from 6 years ago! Why regen faces are worse than several years ago (who can see those eyebrows and just think that is good enough to go into game!?)?

* No more interactions with stuff and players, but make the whole interaction system smarter! Right now is just horrible, you just click and click over the same stuff over and over, and the reactions of players often make no sense, as well as the inflexibility of the whole system itself.

* Smarter, nicer and cleaner UI. In the last iterations of the game we just have to do more clicks to do the same or to access to the same information. But well, at least the intense purple is not anymore hurting my eyes. We have also lost some customization that we had before... for the sake of realism. Just let the players decide what they want to see in the screen while looking at matches so we decide how much "realism" we want. This is not like watching a real football match, and only a small fraction of player would watch the whole match, so just let us choose how much data is shown there.

* The timeline during matches. Idk if this is something personal, but I will never understand the decision of taking that out. It is just incomprenhensible to me that I can not go back to watch something if for any reason I missed it or just want to watch it again. It is a GAME. And I can only guess that it would be straigthforward to bring it back, so please, SI, bring this back.

* Maybe some tuning here and there, making world class players feel like world class players and each individual player feel different. I think now so many parameters are taken into account that player attributes have been relegated to a smaller role than what they should have. This is a personal appreciation though.

* Bring me back the stands in 2D!