Powermonger

Good ideas there Rashidi, I like the idea of tendering for analysis services and entering into a contract with a company, a bit like advertisers or as you say seeking an affiliate club. It would also be good if there were tiers of match analysis packages with ranging fees, thus if your managing a lower league team with less resources of a bigger club, you might only be able to afford a certain level of analysis tools and miss out on some particular screens. Just like clubs upgrade facilities, match analysis information can be upgraded too, either by upgrading to a new analysis/tool tier or entering into a new contract with a different anaylsis company. The end result is that the analysis UI is not static and changes as the club grows or contracts change.

This is more than likely a difficult idea to implement but I'll suggest it all the same. After watching @Rashidi's latest YouTube video about using the STAT match analysis tools to prepare for matches, it would be good if we had the ability in FM to actually choose which match statistics company we wanted to contract ourselves to for analysis tools. Just as in real life, there are many different companies that can provide match analysis software and data to clubs to help with their match and team preparation, each have their own presentation style and features to offer to clubs. I would like see FM include these choices by allowing the ability to tender and contract to different match analysis companies. By contracting to different companies, the match analysis screens we see in FM would reflect this, show matching information in that companies style. If you contract to a different company the the match analysis screens take on a different style and presentation. It would not just be style though that is different but features available, so all the companies may provide all the same core information but in addition they may provide their own special key analysis screens that is not available from the other companies. For example, one excels in specialised passing map views and filters to create diagrams, while another may specialise in player performance information. The aim is to inject a bit of individualism and customisation into each club, different managers may have their own preference for the match analysis companies they like to use. As you change clubs, the stat screens available change also depending on which match analysis company the new club contracts to, meaning the UI is not always the same regardless of what club you are at. I understand there would be licensing issues, obviously SI have an agreement with STAT , but there is no reason I don't think they could introduce fake match analysis companies to FM to act is ingame competitors to STAT.

My option isn't there Waiting for the cold hard copy to appear on shelves.

Click on Training, then the Team tab. Move the scheduling slider top/middle of the screen to the right more. This will reduce the match preparation training. Probably one position to the right will be enough.

Woot! I'm looking forward to FM18 already but as someone who always buys the DVD version, I'll have to forgo the discount i am assuming physical copies will still be pressed this year for us collector types?

It is an announcement of the release date of the announcement for the release date

I know, SI has teamed up with Playerunknown and will announce Football Manager Battlegrounds! 100 football players get dropped on an island, they must find a ball and then search for the goal posts without getting caught behind the circle as it shrinks. If they see another player they can try and hit them with their ball which knocks the opponent out of the game. Celebrating knocking a player out of the game by removing your shirt or by assault randomly place AI referees will see you banned from the game.

A new marketing tactic this year or Miles is just tormenting us?

Good idea or even have the option to build our own through a series of choices when creating our manager.

Yes always bugged me too. It would be good if players had some kind of badge or token next to their name and nationality on their profile to indicate they are EU eligible instead of having to hunt for it.

Maybe SI have made further optimisations for 64bit/multi-core support in FM18, I'd expect they would keep fine tuning their code as they update parts of it and FM17 was the first year they introduced 64bit support.

I posted a idea recently where I think the attribute colour setup should be removed from the preferences area and made as part of the Managers profile, thus our decision as managers and our profile govern how the UI decides on how to rank the attribute ranges for us. Maybe instead of using the simple bar graph or stars, chevrons could be used instead. The number of chevrons displayed next to an attribute is based on it's value, with left most chevrons coloured red and the highest coloured turquoise for instance, the the other chevrons in the middle coloured differently based on how us managers categorise bad, average, good and excellent attribute ranges for our given division. The chevrons would always be multi-coloured, the length would vary though for each attribute. Instead of chevrons, horizontal segmented bars could be used instead with the same colour coding as the chevron idea above, same style as the RDS column graphic. i.e.

Update the table and chart with your testing results @Crispypaul and @pholms. Thanks for testing!

I'll be doing some trial tests when the demo comes out, I am still thinking up some better scenarios to test. I think @yezzko makes a good point, adding a save for testing with all top 5 leagues on full detail with 20 leagues loaded (for example). I am also thinking that dropping the 'transfer window' tests and replace it with a different scenario as on average (for most builds) processing a transfer window week is approximately 50% slower than a normal week. So a rule of thumb can be used there, that is if in the next FM processing follows the same pattern on a trial test.

Upgraded myself to a new 34" ultrawide monitor today. I must say having the extra width in FM now makes a huge difference, can fit more columns on the screen for custom views and I can also fit all the required panels I like to use when watching matches in 2D classic. I highly recommend it for other FM players.