Are you using the squad planner?

[CalumF]

Always used the notepad and pen. Struggling to get into using the planner. Whats everyone else doing?

[dunk105]

Went to use it then found the ask assistants suggestions didnt work at all. Would be useful to have that option working.

[phnompenhandy]

No. I spent time filling it out initially, then when I changed something all my entries were wiped. Tried again - same thing happened. S*d that.

[dℍaisa]

Will try to when the game launches, I hope they make adding players to position a little quicker, as in dragging from a pool of player to position rather than using a dropdown currently. 

[sporadicsmiles]

I do not see the point of it at all. I mean I do not have any need for something to organise my depth charts. I know who I rank where anyway, and the squad is not so big. It does not make it easier to check which players have expiring contracts, and to be honest I am always keeping that in mind as part of the squad planning anyway. It would be nice if there was a way to sort players into ranks of "offer contract with 24, 18 and 12 months", for example. The experience matrix is kinda nice to see the distribution of players in your squad. Otherwise it is just a new presentation of information that was already available elsewhere.

I will not be using it because I do not need it. I have always played the game keeping attention on when I need to offer contracts and building the squad with future in mind. This new thing is not really useful to me in that respect. I know my players, know who plays in what role, etc. 

[wicksyFM]

Trying to. Assistant makes it hard work and it takes ages to set up. After a while I will know every single player at my club and won’t touch that screen again

Edited November 5, 2022 by wicksyFM

[Conardo]

Dont check it ....

[Dagenham_Dave]

Yup, it's my favourite new feature this year. Took me a wee while to learn how it properly works, but now I use it every transfer window. Great addition to the game for me, but as I said in the feedback thread, it's probably not for everyone. 

[fc.cadoni]

Yeap, helps me a lot for future transfers and squad building.

[roykela]

Not using it at all. I have everything i need in my squad view.

[DavyDepuydt1]

Hopefully this is a real eye opener for SI that they don't feel the community and wishes of the majority of their customers as well as they believe they do.

[Dagenham_Dave]

Just now, DavyDepuydt1 said:

Hopefully this is a real eye opener for SI that they don't feel the community and wishes of the majority of their customers as well as they believe they do.

This forum doesn't represent the majority of their customers, or indeed, anywhere close to it. 

[Davienene]

Yes a good tool to assess your clubs options and depth esp for the future

[Mobius]

No it's pointless. Waste of a screen.

[Davienene]

32 minutes ago, Mobius said:

No it's pointless. Waste of a screen.

Why would you say waste of screen when others are clearly stating they use it!! 

[dunk105]

5 hours ago, sporadicsmiles said:

I do not see the point of it at all. I mean I do not have any need for something to organise my depth charts. I know who I rank where anyway, and the squad is not so big. It does not make it easier to check which players have expiring contracts, and to be honest I am always keeping that in mind as part of the squad planning anyway. It would be nice if there was a way to sort players into ranks of "offer contract with 24, 18 and 12 months", for example. The experience matrix is kinda nice to see the distribution of players in your squad. Otherwise it is just a new presentation of information that was already available elsewhere.

I will not be using it because I do not need it. I have always played the game keeping attention on when I need to offer contracts and building the squad with future in mind. This new thing is not really useful to me in that respect. I know my players, know who plays in what role, etc. 

It would be more useful if you could rotate or pick your team with the aid of it.

[XaW]

I think the idea is excellent, but I also think it needs to be improved. It's not user friendly enough, nor is it functionally capable for my uses at least. A few of the things I'd like see improved include

• Custom columns
• Option to right click ANY player to put them into the planner from just about anywhere you can click a player
• The little (i) that is everywhere else to get a popup of the basic info and attributes of the player
• Very improved "ask assistant" logic, preferably with option to "auto show contracts as extended" either for all or tick off players as such, and a bunch of other options along those lines. It annoys me that I know I plan on extending contracts (but the board don't allow more than 2 year deals), and I have to add the players inn every time
• Do something with positions where you have two different roles, like MC or DC. I hate having to remove a player from one since they are clearly only used in one role. Not 100% sure how that would work though. It's just something I find annoying.
• Fix some of the bugs where things reset and you lose your plan
• Have undo-buttons back to when you entered the screen.
• Would like the idea to save a plan, and then have others to toy around with without destroying the current plan. Some form of "store plan", and a button for "revert to stored plan", or something along those lines.
• I'd like feedback from the staff in regards to how the plan looks (with toggle on/off) after you "lock in" the plan for the next season or transfer window. "We have few midfielders, or "the current plan has few up and coming strikers", or "all the central defenders in our plan are quite slow and the tactic has a high defensive line, this is something that could cause us trouble", or something along those lines of pointing out flaws in the plan.

Anyway, my point is that I really like the thought of having a place to plan out the next few seasons, but as it is, it's too hard to use and give too little feedback. I use a spreadsheet for a few of these things, but with an improved planner I can see myself retiring it some time in the future.

[Eoin Maguire]

I said yes because I'm using it but it's only to look at squad depth and shortlist players I might buy at some stage. It's really a glorified squad depth chart with a shortlist button. Absolutely should not be a headline feature, barely even a feature tbh. 

[thefmveteran86]

Nope I've not not really used it any point in any of my FM23 beta save yet 

[XaW]

Please play nice. Removed a few posts. If you don't see your post have another look at the rules, please.

[unitedstian]

Tried it out when I first loaded up the game, then never again. It's just a worse squad depth screen right now

[SeaCarrot]

Why they needed to remove squad depth ive no idea. This is just a more convoluted worse version of it. Terrible 'feature' but it's better than the timeline which is just laughable. I'd have been embarrassed to call that headline.

[KeiranShikari]

7 hours ago, XaW said:

I think the idea is excellent, but I also think it needs to be improved. It's not user friendly enough, nor is it functionally capable for my uses at least. A few of the things I'd like see improved include

• Custom columns
• Option to right click ANY player to put them into the planner from just about anywhere you can click a player
• The little (i) that is everywhere else to get a popup of the basic info and attributes of the player
• Very improved "ask assistant" logic, preferably with option to "auto show contracts as extended" either for all or tick off players as such, and a bunch of other options along those lines. It annoys me that I know I plan on extending contracts (but the board don't allow more than 2 year deals), and I have to add the players inn every time
• Do something with positions where you have two different roles, like MC or DC. I hate having to remove a player from one since they are clearly only used in one role. Not 100% sure how that would work though. It's just something I find annoying.
• Fix some of the bugs where things reset and you lose your plan
• Have undo-buttons back to when you entered the screen.
• Would like the idea to save a plan, and then have others to toy around with without destroying the current plan. Some form of "store plan", and a button for "revert to stored plan", or something along those lines.
• I'd like feedback from the staff in regards to how the plan looks (with toggle on/off) after you "lock in" the plan for the next season or transfer window. "We have few midfielders, or "the current plan has few up and coming strikers", or "all the central defenders in our plan are quite slow and the tactic has a high defensive line, this is something that could cause us trouble", or something along those lines of pointing out flaws in the plan.

Anyway, my point is that I really like the thought of having a place to plan out the next few seasons, but as it is, it's too hard to use and give too little feedback. I use a spreadsheet for a few of these things, but with an improved planner I can see myself retiring it some time in the future.

I'm with you on this, it's a good idea but it's pretty half baked at the moment. I'd like particularly stat views to stick on position and some tie in with the data hub.

That being said I likely will still use it in the main game. The visualisation aspect will probably help me stay onb track.

[jcp1417]

I think this is an unfair and misleading poll. We're in beta and hardly anyone is actually started a long save. No one is going to put in any time to use the squad planner when they are just messing around until the full release. 

The results of this poll at this time is meaningless. 

[DavyDepuydt1]

10 hours ago, Dagenham_Dave said:

This forum doesn't represent the majority of their customers, or indeed, anywhere close to it. 

That argument might have been valid in 1990 for most games where the casual gamer did not find its way to internet forums, but today everyone who is smart enough to launch steam or a game on their console or install an app on their mobile device finds their way around the internet. I think if you would make a poll about demographics, the way people play, how much time they allocate to the game, this forum would be a pretty good sample and sample size for the total player base. So I think anno 2022 it's about time we say farewell to the lifelong argument on "forum doesn't represent player base" on every little bit of criticism, even if it's constructive

Edited November 6, 2022 by DavyDepuydt1

[Cobblers]

For starters, during BETA I've played around 1.5 seasons with two different top flight teams. At best I've dabbled with the Squad Planner.

As an experienced FM player, my thoughts on it aren't overly positive for it's not a feature I find saves me time or opens up another world of the game I was missing previously. It comes across as a needless time sink once used with a feeling of "not sure I learnt anything new about my squad for the time spent using this new feature". This is disappointing.

Could it be more useful for playing teams that I have no knowledge of? Yes possibly. Due to this, the Squad Planner isn't worthy of being the sole driver for this release.

I am essentially playing/paying for FM23 purely for the data update. This has kind of been a theme for the last few seasons and I was very tempted not to part with my money this year and just continue on with FM22 and use a FOC data update instead.

So in summary, am I happy with the squad planner? No, not really and would have been more excited were the SI Devs instead to have redeveloped the "press conference" experience.

[Chetsfmfan]

No, as an experienced FM player, I generally have my future (1-2 seasons ahead) first and second 11 already mentally planned. It is an upgrade on the old squad depth screen, but even that I only used it a handful of times in the thousands of hours I’ve spent on FM.

For me, simply arranging the shortlist by position more than suffices for planning - it is way more informative too. I do appreciate the idea as it may help new players, but it’s not for me.

Edited November 7, 2022 by Chetsfmfan

[angelo994]

Honestly, no. It’s a decent enough idea. But poorly implemented. The UI is really bad imo. It also doesn’t seem to work with my Under 18s & doesn’t take them into consideration for my squad plan. It’s also just straight up not available for international management.

[Cobblers]

1 minute ago, angelo994 said:

Honestly, no. It’s a decent enough idea. But poorly implemented. The UI is really bad imo. It also doesn’t seem to work with my Under 18s & doesn’t take them into consideration for my squad plan. It’s also just straight up not available for international management.

You could be onto something there regards the International management - this would be a good idea. That's one of the reasons I don't go near it is due to the constant task of keeping up with players from not just one club, but 20+/one of the largest footballing nations in the world. 

[BrightLad5]

Rarely. Might do for youth development in my long term save but dont think it will be used by me for potential for signings. I don't really look at star rating for Current ability, mainly stick to looking at attributes

Edited November 7, 2022 by BrightLad5

[GOODNAME]

Never clicked on it lol 

[podunkboy]

So far I'm been playing LLM/create a club, and it's pretty useless because everyone who warrants a notice in the planner is poached or refuses to renew their contract because "I'm SPECIAL!". I've been playing so long I can pretty much do the same thing through the squad screen more effectively. 

[CoffeeFueledCurmudgeon]

No, but if it helps those that do use it, then great, everyone wins.

[jfmargolin]

Yes but very frustrating with some of the issues. When you update it just to lose it all the third time  ... I just gave up

[BamBamBam]

Its a mess unfortunately. Needs a complete overhaul, and for a new feature, thats not a great start. 

[renato.]

No and I won't be using if custom views aren't avaliable. I want to compare the performance from my players based in stats, in what they have done.

[phnompenhandy]

I've only just found the assman's stuff on comparing my club with others in the division is now tucked away in the squad planner. I'll use that bit. Only that.

[stevedaytona]

So far the only time I have used it was at the end of the season - useful for that but not for much else.

[Artin]

nope.

notepad app on windows is infinitely better than the squad planner

[Dagenham_Dave]

45 minutes ago, Artin said:

nope.

notepad app on windows is infinitely better than the squad planner

Cool that your notepad allows you to quickly set up a recruitment focus for the position you're looking at. Need to get me one of those notepads...        

[Angus Osborne]

I'm using it, but I would love it if there was a feature where it had my squad listed and I could drag and drop the players into positions in the tactic

[Siven]

Not really. 

I just use my squad view and tactic view.

Maybe in the future i might. 

[Dagenham_Dave]

The only thing I don't like about it is that you can't click on the column headings to sort the list of players, that feels like an oversight to me. 

[nunch98]

I use it mostly so i can get better staff suggestions in my weekly meetings, but i agree it needs improvement.

[FelixForte]

I do use it every time my loan players and signings return, etc. But during the season I still find myself doing a first and second 11 in the tactics set up.

 

The structure of the squad planner encourages you to have players in multiple positions. E.g. you put your best right footed centerback as the second op left center back. While I may play him there on occassion, it does not give you the feel you’re assessing ‘squad depth’ like you are when setting your first 11 and subs for a game. For instance, you could have on left centerback a squad planner with 4 players (e.g left centerback, right centerback, left back and defensive midfielder), but in practice I actually need a back up left center back. That would have become obvious when setting up my best 11 and subs, because the others would already be accounted for in my line up. I guess my broader point is that positions are mutually exclusive, while the squad planner is not.

 

I do understand the appeal because I may very well play me left back on left centerback, but it doesn’t help me in assessing where I lack depth

[Zapoleon]

Gave it a good try, but just not something I will use. 

[Hootieleece]

I set it up when the meeting/email's ask, for the current season, but I am not exactly a fan of all the extra clicking to set it up for the future as well.

Plus, I am usually using a pen and paper when I do things like that and have for years.

[PoolFan]

Worthless feature that adds nothing to the game, complete fluff. Typical SI

[lordjanos]

Only thing it's useful for is quickly seeing squad depth... Which I swear we've always had for a few FMs now in the tactics screens lol?

Meanwhile... In the barren wastelands of media and press conferences that have been untouched for a decade 😂

[godlessshoes]

Went through setting it up manually because for some reason none of the assistant buttons work to fill it out, clicked on a player to look at his profile, clicked back and the whole planner was blank again.

Can't be arsed to go through that every time