Dagenham_Dave

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I'd imagine the quality of newgens coming through will be higher to stop teams clinging on to a whole team of 34+ year olds like what happened in FM22 - Biggest thing that ruined the game for me this year.

No, usually only at the time of full release

Staff at SI.....

Having initially been a bit underwhelmed by what's new this year, the more I read about some of the new features, the more excited I'm getting for when the Beta drops. The changes to recruitment, scouting, and the new squad planner are all things I will heavily use. Improvement to the Data Hub are welcome, particularly being able to quickly add all graphs instead of searching for each one separately. I barely used the Data Hub last year after an initial burst with it, so hopefully this will make it more user friendly. I know I'll be in a minority with this one, but I'm probably most excited about the changes to how cup draws are made. I love the game being more immersive, and I'm looking forward to how this will work in game. Changes to the ME and improvements to manager AI are always welcome. The new supporter profile thing looks interesting, but a little disappointing to hear it will only be partially dynamic. But yeah, although it doesn't seem a big leap from FM22, the scouting/recruitment thing alone is worth it. And also the added interactions with agents. Going forward, the three biggest changes I want to see are (same as everyone) a revamp of the set piece creator, a complete revamp on how international management is handled, most importantly from my own selfish perspective, a proper fully moddable pre-game stadium editor. Last one is a game changer for me.

I like the way we can now quickly go to a screen and see an overview of all the competitions your youth teams are involved in.

* gasps * Look what I see... Could it be... I'm shaking with excitement.... Bah. Better luck next time.

It's clear you have a complete misunderstanding of the game's match engine. For there to even be the graphical representation of it that exists right now is something of a miracle. The graphical improvements that CAN be made are more aesthetic, like improving the lighting, the stadiums, the pitch textures, the ball, etc, as these were arguably better in older versions. As for how the match plays out, I still find it surprising that they have even managed a 3d representation of it at all. Trying to marry that up with more modern graphics/animations would be an absolute nightmare, I reckon.

Lucky you to have played the game already.

I used to start my long term save when the beta dropped, but that stopped in FM20 when my save game was corrupted after the official release. Therefore the last two editions, and the one coming up, I will have a short save on the beta before firing into the main save. This year I will be picking a Champs League team (probably Brugge) just to see the fancy new UEFA graphics and cup draws, as it will be many years before I see it in my main save!!

I'm 52 and have been playing football management games since I was 12 when I played the first Football Manager on the ZX Spectrum. I will die before I stop.

Awful comment.

Guys guys guys, it's on Thursday. No sooner, no later. Just chill, relax, and look forward to losing yourself deep into the soft entwines of the squad planner. It's almost erotic.

I'd actually prefer to see less tactical flexibility and make it so the human manager can only do whatever the AI manager can do. Then, as the AI gets more advanced, more tactical flexibility opens up for the human player. Means the game wouldn't be as heavily weighted towards the player as it is now, and there wouldn't be as many of those game breaking super tactics as there is now. I suspect I'll be in the minority on this, however.

It's so close you can almost smell it.

Only 5 days away

Whilst I like this idea in theory, marrying this up with the current graphics/animation models is going to lead to some cringeworthy, meme-level, moments.

I was just coming on here to post 'Minecraft', it's literally the most popular game on the planet right now (god knows why, but thats another story...) , and the graphics on that game are primitive at best.

How many times do people need to be told that the match engine and the graphics engine are two completely different things?

There are many football management games out there, none of them are anywhere close to FM. Ask yourself why that is. What is stopping a company from releasing a blockbuster management game? The market is there for it. The reason is they know they can't possibly match what SI have built over the years. And as much as the game is far from perfect, it's streets ahead of anything else, which is down to the continual hard work of the devs. They could easily dumb the game down and save a fortume and still make a killing, but they'll never do that.

Unless they are professional and have a great deal of pride in what they do. Something I've always felt SI have had. The 'no competition' schtick is just lazy, and dare I say, offensive to the amount of work that must go in to producing such a top notch product year after year.

I'm assuming you skipped FM22 then. My centre and attacking mids are constantly my top assisters in the game this year.

One on ones still not fixed then!