FM25 and the future.

[Dagenham_Dave]

29 minutes ago, busngabb said:

ramped up sliders/impacts of doing things right/wrong tactically etc.

How, specifically would that work without changing the entire match engine? I mean, it's a moot point, as SI will never introduce such a thing, thankfully, but I'm interested nonetheless. People think it's so easy in a game like this to make these arbitrary settings to make it harder. It would be an absolute nightmare trying to code that, alongside the 'normal' version of the game. Also, if you think the feedback thread is a venomous pit of slime just now, it would be ten times worse if this ever happened. 

7 hours ago, busngabb said:

I think the removal of FM Classic/Touch or whatever it was called on PC was a mistake

This I do agree with. It was an excellent game mode. Exactly the same as the full game tactically, same match engine, but with a lot of the menial stuff taken care of by staff. PC version should never have been removed. 

There was also this common fallacy that it was an 'easier' game. This put the purist snobs off even trying it and ultimately led to its demise. It wasn't any easier, in fact the last time I was sacked on FM was on FM Classic. 

[enigmatic]

2 hours ago, Dagenham_Dave said:

What most people tend to forget with this is, yes, it might be 'trivially easy' to make the game look 'cosmetically better', but this big upscale in cosmetics still has to deal with the millions of calculations per second that the match engine is based on. It's not FIFA with it's limited palette of build up play and movement (honestly the ME is night and day between the two). To be able to marry FM's ME with FIFA's graphics might be the dream, but that's never happening for a long, long time. 

In short, it's nowhere near 'trivially easy' to make it look so much better cosmetically, even with the right resources. 

The point wasn't that perfection or photorealism is easy, the point was that it's not difficult to find a broad agreement that basic stuff like higher poly models and more naturalistic colours, effects like fog make a better looking game in the current one. Whereas nobody actually agrees what "better tactical control" or a "more realistic transfer market" actually means, and this stuff has had a lot more attention from version to version and patch to patch than stuff like the stadium art direction, no, it's not like they haven't been trying. I do agree that higher poly models mean more scope for transitions between animations and collisions looking awkward, but the bar isn't high because it's got to beat FM24 not FIFA (and I'm sure they'll control available camera angles and zooms carefully.)

(FWIW there are - according to SI - four decision making calculations per player per second, plus obviously real-time ball physics and movement executed according to those decisions. tbh the number of decisions per second not being particularly large probably makes it harder to align animations with real time ball physics and collisions)

Edited December 5, 2023 by enigmatic

[alian62]

2 hours ago, busngabb said:

Sounds a lot, but really isn't. The Classic would just be the core game with sections removed and their impact removed. The Hardcore mode is just the core game but with more realistic restrictions on squad building and ramped up sliders/impacts of doing things right/wrong tactically etc.

You would think that but Football Manager is the most computer draining game I own . I can play high quality games like all the Toal War games , City Skylines , 2K Golf and Basketball without any issues yet FM I struggle and I can only play small leagues . I've Optimisated everything I can think of so I'm hoping UNITY might actually help

[busngabb]

1 hour ago, Dagenham_Dave said:

How, specifically would that work without changing the entire match engine? I mean, it's a moot point, as SI will never introduce such a thing, thankfully, but I'm interested nonetheless. People think it's so easy in a game like this to make these arbitrary settings to make it harder. It would be an absolute nightmare trying to code that, alongside the 'normal' version of the game. Also, if you think the feedback thread is a venomous pit of slime just now, it would be ten times worse if this ever happened.

Just by making it harder by default? So making a tactical mistake has more impact, so weaknesses in your tactics or players are more likely to cause you problems. I've no idea how the calculations behind FM work, but presumably there is some sort of calculation going on to see if things happen, just tweek them to make them favour the AI more. If they are set currently to be completely fair and based on the tactics and players and not favour the human player, then make the AI do more to try to beat you. I always start FM with my own tactics, fail to win anything but do well compared to real life and get frustrated. I moan about it on the tactics forums and people point out the glarring errors, I change those and instantly win titles. If there were such glarring, obvious errors, why was I doing well in the first place?

I'm absolutely terrible at the tactics side of the game. I understand football, played it at a pretty good level. But I look at the FM match engine and I'm really struggling to pull any real information from it. Most of the goals I concede are balls from a marked central midfielder up to a marked forward who turns and leathers it into the goal. Or tap ins from second balls on set pieces and I have no idea what that means in the game. But I've started two careers on FM24 (Both as Everton), made my own tactics loosely based around how I'd like them to play and I was top after 23 games in one, but restarted after the update because Jarred Branthwaite had scored 20 and I figured set pieces might be permanently broken. I've started a new career and I'm second after 15 games, with only the loan signings of Ilaix Moriba, Fabien Rieder and Hamad Traore (None of whom play regularly). If someone as bad at the tactics side of the game as me can do that, I hate to think how easy those who really know what they're doing with the tactics are finding it.

[Dagenham_Dave]

35 minutes ago, busngabb said:

Just by making it harder by default? So making a tactical mistake has more impact, so weaknesses in your tactics or players are more likely to cause you problems. I've no idea how the calculations behind FM work, but presumably there is some sort of calculation going on to see if things happen, just tweek them to make them favour the AI more.

But adding that as an option to choose would involve a complete re-write of the match engine, otherwise it wouldn't work. It certainly wouldn't be a case of 'just tweaking' something! 

Given the majority of players who play this game haven't won anything, its fair to say the game will be already doing a good enough job of exploiting weaknesses in tactics. My own personal experience is this is by some way the hardest version of the game I've played in years. Which has made it much more enjoyable (for me anyway). But again, I don't manage in England with its endless riches. 

 

[Costav]

Maybe what @busngabb is expressing is too much on the limit of what is possible/not possible, but I agree with him with the fact that usually is easy to adapt a new player to your tactics without loosing cohesion and, more in general, team performance.
If only they could expand and enrich the learning curve of the tactical side of your team this would be great. As an example, IRL there are play of players who play a little or not at all in the first part of the season and they then they become titular, just because they need to enter in the new team mechanisms, understand how to fit in the new coach's tactics (and so on...). In FM you can buy a new player and it will be determinant from the very beginning. 

I am not saying that has to be like this for every player, of course, but the learning curve is very steep that after half of the season almost every player in your team is 100% fitting your tactics, even if you are a new coach and you change completely their habits.

Edited December 6, 2023 by Costav

[dosh]

https://www.footballmanager.com/news/future-football-manager

According to the link, in FM25, it mentions a shift to the Unity engine, stating 'FM25 - For the first time in decades, a true sequel. The Unity engine will bring a new graphics engine, a fresh user interface, and advanced animations'. What I'm curious about is whether the match engine (ME) in FM25 will also undergo a complete overhaul. I wonder if there will be improvements to the ME based on the existing series or if you will start completely anew with a new code.

 

[grade]

1 hour ago, dosh said:

https://www.footballmanager.com/news/future-football-manager

According to the link, in FM25, it mentions a shift to the Unity engine, stating 'FM25 - For the first time in decades, a true sequel. The Unity engine will bring a new graphics engine, a fresh user interface, and advanced animations'. What I'm curious about is whether the match engine (ME) in FM25 will also undergo a complete overhaul. I wonder if there will be improvements to the ME based on the existing series or if you will start completely anew with a new code.

 

My reaction to FM 24 features, was just a surreal indifference reaction. I will wait for the official announcements to be released.

Until then I'm killing any sort of expectations or excitement for FM25.

[Dagenham_Dave]

26 minutes ago, grade said:

My reaction to FM 24 features, was just a surreal indifference reaction. I will wait for the official announcements to be released.

Until then I'm killing any sort of expectations or excitement for FM25.

Every single year you moan about the game. 

On that basis, I expect FM25 will see no difference 

[forameuss]

1 hour ago, dosh said:

https://www.footballmanager.com/news/future-football-manager

According to the link, in FM25, it mentions a shift to the Unity engine, stating 'FM25 - For the first time in decades, a true sequel. The Unity engine will bring a new graphics engine, a fresh user interface, and advanced animations'. What I'm curious about is whether the match engine (ME) in FM25 will also undergo a complete overhaul. I wonder if there will be improvements to the ME based on the existing series or if you will start completely anew with a new code.

 

You're almost certainly not going to get a definitive answer, but I would be absolutely amazed if they've started completely from scratch, especially with the ME.  Maybe I'm wrong, but I can't see them throwing away a product of two decades of work.  That's not to say it'll just be same-old, particularly with the addition of women's football, but I don't think they've just sat down with a blank piece of paper asking "what now?".  There'll be significant changes.

[Alejandro_FM]

17 hours ago, Dagenham_Dave said:

But adding that as an option to choose would involve a complete re-write of the match engine, otherwise it wouldn't work. It certainly wouldn't be a case of 'just tweaking' something! 

Given the majority of players who play this game haven't won anything, its fair to say the game will be already doing a good enough job of exploiting weaknesses in tactics. My own personal experience is this is by some way the hardest version of the game I've played in years. Which has made it much more enjoyable (for me anyway). But again, I don't manage in England with its endless riches. 

 

Piling on as I think this exchange is important. 

First, my experience is similar to Dave's here re: the Match Engine. It's a very complex simulation of real life football, and it does not feel to me like it distinguishes the human manager from the AI. Tweaking the effect of any one parameter could cause a chain reaction and distort the balance. Difficulty level configurations within the ME would go against to its design and purpose (and probably supremely hard to do, if at all possible). 

I think it's probably a tad more straightforward to implement configured difficulties on things like transfers and contracts, but then again I think such changes will be conflicting with stated design principle of SI to make the game world realistic with realistic transfers and squads and so on. Obviously, the game does not achieve complete realism in the transfer market, and certainly gaps could be exploited by the human player, yes.

So perhaps the  way to add difficulty to gameplay within the existing design of FM is more "fog of war" beyond attribute masking. Some of which can already be done today via custom skins but I do think there's room for SI to incorporate more "fog of war" options in the game.

One other idea is career modes that limit you to your role. You're hired by a club to do a job (i.e. first team head coach), and you're told by the board what you control and what you don't. I know it can be achieved today (kind of) by customizing the responsibility assignments, but again, that's a bit arbitrary and controlled by the user, whereas career modes are in the spirit of realism. Your responsibilities are set by your job and you're evaluated on doing your job (Maybe you're hired as a DOF and you're evaluated by the board on recruitment success). 

Finally, about game modes: I actually like them as a way to accommodate play styles rather than difficulty. I used to love FM Touch/Classic. I think it'd be great and most accommodating to all players if within the PC version you could preselect "classic" or "full" at the save setup. Or even go further and pick elements from a list of 5-6 - media y/n, interactions y/n, ... and so on. I have no idea how easy or difficult this would be to implement. And I frankly have no clue what their internal data says about the demand for "Classic" within FM's customer base. I do know that personally, if there was a lighter version of FM for PC, I'd prefer it for sure. But I love the game enough that I still buy and play the full version in lieu of PC alternatives. 

 

[grade]

8 hours ago, Dagenham_Dave said:

Every single year you moan about the game. 

On that basis, I expect FM25 will see no difference 

Yes, every year I moan, about the same features, that add nothing to the game. But if noticed, at least I stop moaning about the FM Classic Editor.

[alian62]

8 hours ago, forameuss said:

You're almost certainly not going to get a definitive answer, but I would be absolutely amazed if they've started completely from scratch, especially with the ME.  Maybe I'm wrong, but I can't see them throwing away a product of two decades of work.  That's not to say it'll just be same-old, particularly with the addition of women's football, but I don't think they've just sat down with a blank piece of paper asking "what now?".  There'll be significant changes.

Remember they just haven't started to do FM25 from now ? It's been worked on for the last 3 years or so . So a new match engine could be in the wind but the reason they are going to UNITY is because they really can't get the Graphic side of the game to match the ME . The ME plays alright but what you see on screen isn't what's implemented properly. This is why you see odd moments in the game play. 

Edited December 7, 2023 by alian62

[phd_angel]

On 29/11/2023 at 22:50, endlessxcircle said:

I know myself that I'd like to see a return to a more simplified experience similar to that of the earlier days of Football Manager, where it catered for a far wider audience.

FM unit sales has been increasing over the years. Researching online, it used to sell 500k units each year during the 2000s, growing to 1 million units in recent years.

I'd agree that sales has been growing, not because the game is better, but rather because society and marketing are way more digitized today than 20 years ago.

Also agree that FM is bloated with some utterly dispensable features, but it also is much more visually appealing and immersive than in former years.

Customization is the key word. Other than core/essential elements, FM could enable gamers to (un)select secondary elements not indispensable to the match and game engines.

[forameuss]

9 hours ago, alian62 said:

Remember they just haven't started to do FM25 from now ? It's been worked on for the last 3 years or so . So a new match engine could be in the wind but the reason they are going to UNITY is because they really can't get the Graphic side of the game to match the ME . The ME plays alright but what you see on screen isn't what's implemented properly. This is why you see odd moments in the game play. 

I'm well aware.  But that's 3 years versus a couple of decades.  There will be significant rewrites, but I'd still be amazed if they started from scratch.  That just isn't realistic

[dannyo666]

Ill never trust SI again after 24....So many false promises before launch...Always saw SI as in the "FM Family" with all of us playing but it feels like money and sales are all priority now-check the comments on twitter......as for 25?please.....cant get this legacy version of the game working properly never mind a whole new engine/format....From all the comments ive seen it seems the promises made are why people are upset.....mistakes from developers i can live with but false promises(im trying not to use the word lies)....really has me and countless others upset....paid 50 quid for this game and im playing 23 still...it beggers belief tbh

[Brother Ben]

18 hours ago, Alejandro_FM said:

So perhaps the  way to add difficulty to gameplay within the existing design of FM is more "fog of war" beyond attribute masking. Some of which can already be done today via custom skins but I do think there's room for SI to incorporate more "fog of war" options in the game.

One other idea is career modes that limit you to your role. You're hired by a club to do a job (i.e. first team head coach), and you're told by the board what you control and what you don't. I know it can be achieved today (kind of) by customizing the responsibility assignments, but again, that's a bit arbitrary and controlled by the user, whereas career modes are in the spirit of realism. Your responsibilities are set by your job and you're evaluated on doing your job (Maybe you're hired as a DOF and you're evaluated by the board on recruitment success). 

Big fan of these suggestions, would make the game more realistic too

[alian62]

5 minutes ago, dannyo666 said:

Ill never trust SI again after 24....So many false promises before launch...Always saw SI as in the "FM Family" with all of us playing but it feels like money and sales are all priority now-check the comments on twitter......as for 25?please.....cant get this legacy version of the game working properly never mind a whole new engine/format....From all the comments ive seen it seems the promises made are why people are upset.....mistakes from developers i can live with but false promises(im trying not to use the word lies)....really has me and countless others upset....paid 50 quid for this game and im playing 23 still...it beggers belief tbh

Where there has been some broken promises it is still a better game than FM23 . A few more patches will see it right im sure . It runs smoother,  faster and has a better feel overall and certainly a better 3D experience.  It's not perfect but it us better .

[dannyo666]

5 minutes ago, alian62 said:

Where there has been some broken promises it is still a better game than FM23 . A few more patches will see it right im sure . It runs smoother,  faster and has a better feel overall and certainly a better 3D experience.  It's not perfect but it us better .

I cant aqgre but each to their own,im playing 23 with davidsid realistc mod and defo enjoying it somewhat-24 is just to buggy and not what i was expecting...I do agree on the GE is better but not the ME-no chance.....the next patch has really gotta nail a these bugs out...24 has som much potential but it was not ready to be launched IMO

[forameuss]

I like the assertion that now SI only care about "money and sales", like previous versions have all been wholly philanthropic.  The main priority is - and always will be - to sell more copies and make more money.  The route towards that is almost always through providing a product that people want.

[Dagenham_Dave]

23 minutes ago, dannyo666 said:

I cant aqgre but each to their own,im playing 23 with davidsid realistc mod and defo enjoying it somewhat-24 is just to buggy and not what i was expecting...I do agree on the GE is better but not the ME-no chance.....the next patch has really gotta nail a these bugs out...24 has som much potential but it was not ready to be launched IMO

Dude, the match engine in this game is light years better than the one in FM23. It's not even close. The overall game is miles better also. I have no idea how people can genuinely think otherwise. 

[dannyo666]

1 hour ago, Dagenham_Dave said:

Dude, the match engine in this game is light years better than the one in FM23. It's not even close. The overall game is miles better also. I have no idea how people can genuinely think otherwise. 

Really?Great if that your experiance.100% has the potential to be a great ME with updates but 23 as of typing is much better ME while of course it falls short on graphics compared to 24 IMO,24 ME is broken for me-again im sure patched will address this and the GE is miles above other FMs in history no denying that

 

1 hour ago, forameuss said:

I like the assertion that now SI only care about "money and sales", like previous versions have all been wholly philanthropic.  The main priority is - and always will be - to sell more copies and make more money.  The route towards that is almost always through providing a product that people want.

I never said SI only care about "money and sales"...if you read my post....I said it seemed like a priority in 24 ....of course a good product as advertised should come with reward of financial reward.Thats lfe,thats business....Looking forward to the game being delivered as "the most complete" version in due course

[Dagenham_Dave]

45 minutes ago, dannyo666 said:

Really?Great if that your experiance.100% has the potential to be a great ME with updates but 23 as of typing is much better ME 

It's not really up for debate here. The match engine in FM24 is objectively better than that of FM23, whether you, I, or anyone else might think otherwise. That's just facts. 

[DavutOzkan]

3 hours ago, dannyo666 said:

I cant aqgre but each to their own,im playing 23 with davidsid realistc mod and defo enjoying it somewhat-24 is just to buggy and not what i was expecting...I do agree on the GE is better but not the ME-no chance.....the next patch has really gotta nail a these bugs out...24 has som much potential but it was not ready to be launched IMO

The version for 24 comes out tomorrow (8th), I believe, if that matters at all for you.. 

Edited December 7, 2023 by DavutOzkan

[forameuss]

3 hours ago, dannyo666 said:

I never said SI only care about "money and sales"...if you read my post....I said it seemed like a priority in 24 ....of course a good product as advertised should come with reward of financial reward.Thats lfe,thats business....Looking forward to the game being delivered as "the most complete" version in due course

Semantics really, as the same goes.  That's always been their priority.  There hasn't been some big meeting at SI where they suddenly decide "nah, screw the fans, now it's all about the the priority is money and sales".  All that's happened is they've delivered the product they had at release, and you haven't liked it.  Which is perfectly fine, of course.

[fc.cadoni]

9 hours ago, dannyo666 said:

Ill never trust SI again after 24....So many false promises before launch...Always saw SI as in the "FM Family" with all of us playing but it feels like money and sales are all priority now-check the comments on twitter......as for 25?please.....cant get this legacy version of the game working properly never mind a whole new engine/format....From all the comments ive seen it seems the promises made are why people are upset.....mistakes from developers i can live with but false promises(im trying not to use the word lies)....really has me and countless others upset....paid 50 quid for this game and im playing 23 still...it beggers belief tbh

FM24 is still in progress and under development product. Last patch will be March 2024 (as in previous versions).

[chvrches]

Football manager will not appeal to a wider audience by scaling back the game. They’ll appeal to a wider audience by 1) improving the graphics and 2) finding a way to make increasingly more in depth games easier to understand and operate. If they can’t do that then they’ll be better off simply continuing what they’re currently doing, which is adding more depth to the game every year.

No idea why you think football manager is trying to be fifa, because they want to make the game look better? If that’s your opinion then you don’t understand what fifa is, what football manager is, or what they both are, one of those three. Improved graphics will pull in new players. I’m sorry that you don’t have the time to put into the game these days, but that doesn’t mean si should scale back the depth and quality of the game. It’s a football management simulation after all, i.e. not fifa.

[forameuss]

People keep talking about a wider audience, but I'm not convinced there really is this mythical larger market that SI can go after.  Are there really a sizeable number of people that are interested enough in football management to want to play FM, but decide to completely abstain from the only product in the market purely because the graphics don't look as good as they could?

What is true is that they can't, as a particularly niche product, **** off the market they do have.  Unfortunately, that's probably unavoidable, as no matter what direction you go in, someone's going to feel like it's drifting away from where they want it to be.  Best you can try is balance.

[dannyo666]

2 hours ago, forameuss said:

People keep talking about a wider audience, but I'm not convinced there really is this mythical larger market that SI can go after.  Are there really a sizeable number of people that are interested enough in football management to want to play FM, but decide to completely abstain from the only product in the market purely because the graphics don't look as good as they could?

What is true is that they can't, as a particularly niche product, **** off the market they do have.  Unfortunately, that's probably unavoidable, as no matter what direction you go in, someone's going to feel like it's drifting away from where they want it to be.  Best you can try is balance.

But isnt this why they are releasing 25 with unity for player's who need both sim/realsim and graphics...I couldnt care less about graphics as long as the engine works but thats just me..It is a football sim after all,i agree with you 100% its about balance but working engine should be more important than graphics in a "sim"......

[dannyo666]

20 hours ago, DavutOzkan said:

The version for 24 comes out tomorrow (8th), I believe, if that matters at all for you.. 

Yup 5pm today-Looking forward to it and hopefully start new 24 save

[Harper]

5 hours ago, forameuss said:

People keep talking about a wider audience, but I'm not convinced there really is this mythical larger market that SI can go after.  Are there really a sizeable number of people that are interested enough in football management to want to play FM, but decide to completely abstain from the only product in the market purely because the graphics don't look as good as they could?

What is true is that they can't, as a particularly niche product, **** off the market they do have.  Unfortunately, that's probably unavoidable, as no matter what direction you go in, someone's going to feel like it's drifting away from where they want it to be.  Best you can try is balance.

Adding the women’s game is about growing the user base (e.g., the women’s football/gamer market).

Migrating to the Unity engine is more about modernizing the tech stack than it is enticing EA\Konami players. Probably has a benefit in widening the applicant pool for entry level positions and reducing the onboarding/learning curve there.

[forameuss]

3 hours ago, Harper said:

Adding the women’s game is about growing the user base (e.g., the women’s football/gamer market).

Migrating to the Unity engine is more about modernizing the tech stack than it is enticing EA\Konami players. Probably has a benefit in widening the applicant pool for entry level positions and reducing the onboarding/learning curve there.

While I see where you're coming from though, is there this big untapped market of people who are suddenly going to be interested in playing FM just because you can be Emma Hayes?  And this isn't a comment against them including Women's football, I'm really looking forward to that, but I'd imagine those interested enough to give FM a try are probably already playing it.

That's not to say there aren't some numbers to be gained, but I just don't think there is really this big market share to be obtained.  They've already obtained it.

[Harper]

23 minutes ago, forameuss said:

While I see where you're coming from though, is there this big untapped market of people who are suddenly going to be interested in playing FM just because you can be Emma Hayes?  And this isn't a comment against them including Women's football, I'm really looking forward to that, but I'd imagine those interested enough to give FM a try are probably already playing it.

That's not to say there aren't some numbers to be gained, but I just don't think there is really this big market share to be obtained.  They've already obtained it.

Absolutely. There is a not insignificant number of people who will experience FM for the first time because they can manage the women’s team they support. There is a whole generation of kids with pocket computers that need to be introduced and hooked to the game. It’s not a given that the next generation will just buy Football Manager because it exists. Expanding the game to include the women’s game adds another angle to entice those wide-eyed tweens that will fill up the Emirates this weekend.

[grade]

1 hour ago, Harper said:

Absolutely. There is a not insignificant number of people who will experience FM for the first time because they can manage the women’s team they support. There is a whole generation of kids with pocket computers that need to be introduced and hooked to the game. It’s not a given that the next generation will just buy Football Manager because it exists. Expanding the game to include the women’s game adds another angle to entice those wide-eyed tweens that will fill up the Emirates this weekend.

And women's football is the last card to draw a lot of people, that isn't playing FM.

However, SI did report that mobile game isn't as viable, as they predicted and it is the main reason they partnered with Netflix (unsure who seek whom here). What I'm getting is, that if nowadays everyone has a smartphone and they aren't selling what is expected shows how niche the game is. And also can't moan or praise it, since never played it and I do have a smartphone... meaning there are probably some people like me who play FM and FM Touch but don't bother with the mobile game.