rp1966

As far as not seeing saves, that might be related to what's being chosen for the key highlights package. Try playing a few games on comprehensive to get a better feel for what the match engine is really doing - I see plenty of saves. Ratings is a whole other issue - goalkeepers only tend to get good ratings when they make lots of saves, so in my games where I generally dominate possession and most saves are by the opposition keeper, I generally see a good rating for their keeper and a mediocre one for mine. But then sometimes my keeper will have a good rating and I'll have no idea why. Like I say, keeper ratings can be weird.

Quite like the idea of the media asking you about "Grockle-ball"

Only right that I should reply to my own question. So, I used to just use my real name all the time, but went through a phase of playing double-headed games with one manager in the EPL and one journeyman so I needed multiple manager names. This led to me starting to adopt a new manager name for each save (stops things getting confusing in the hall of fame, too). So I have a few methods: For European clubs I'll use a country specific variant of my real name (my first name has a version in most European countries, though I need to get inventive with my surname) For UK saves I'll often use 'Ron Manager' - stolen from The Fast Show, which I guess dates me! For non-European saves (like my current Japan one) I try to make up an appropriate name for the country - so my current manager is Takeshi (from Altered Carbon, the Netflix series) Murakami (one of my favourite authors). Funnily enough, this is a combination that the game can generate for newgens and there's a team in the league with a young striker called Takeshi Murakami - would have signed him, but he wasn't good enough

Now I'm guessing that most people are just using their own real name. But for those who don't, how do you name your manager? Do you use a name of a great newgen from a previous save, a big footballing name from the past, a name appropriate to the country you're managing in, a joke name? Do you always use the same name or change it every save? Tell us about your manager naming methods ...

Yes, the squad-building logic could be improved, but you're talking about top teams - ultimately they've got the money to shut out most of their competition when it comes to recruitment. You also have the problem that the human advantage over SI's code means that even if you miss out on the very best player in a position because another top team got them, you'll just get the next one in the list and because of attribute ranges and RNG, they'll likely keep your squad at the level it needs to be. The kind of changes SI are likely to be able to make could well work for the next tier down teams - better squad-building and recruitment competition could work, but the absolute top teams have the reputation and money to overcome that and I really don't see how FM can ever make playing as Man City challenging. I suppose longer term, one problem that you do get in FM with top teams is a problem with massive wages which makes offloading players harder than clubs with sensible wage structures, but even then between Saudi clubs picking up your has-beens and the magic sponsorship money you'll never hit a point where the board will sack you because you're throwing money down the drain.

Of course he'll say it's a challenge. But that's not the real question for FM. The real question is "Can the things that make managing a big team challenging IRL be properly represented in the game?". Given that they are largely to do with maintaining success and the mental pressures that come with that I'm not sure they can be. How, in game, do you get round the fact that recruitment when you have City, PSG or Real money is dead simple or that man-management can only be represented vaguely without true AI - and is already the most tedious, rage-inducing part of the game? How would you like big-club management to be more challenging?

Apparently his parents were very big fans of the Johnny Cash song "A Boy Named Sue" ... ... either that or it's a preview of a facegen bug for after the introduction of women's football

Steam - came in at 227Mb. Slow internet here, so was on screen long enough to read it clearly. EDIT - details have been posted

>200Mb as well, so presumably not insignificant changes.

Wonderkidaholics Anonymous is that way ----->

I'm just imagining a team attribute called 'Spursiness' in the database ...

I think people need to be very careful about stating that what they see in their save applies to everyone. There's a few people saying about the kind of super high scoring games that we saw in the first version of the ME, but certainly for me, and for some others who have commented in this thread, the number of goals have dropped considerably post-patch. I've just had quick tour through the big European leagues that I have got on full detail as well as J1 where I'm playing and things seem much more toned down - a high scoring game is far more likely to be a 4-2 than the 6-3 type scoreline from the pre-update ME. In my last season, pre-patch, I had a couple of 9-2 league wins. This season, post patch, the biggest win was a 6-0 against lower league cup opposition and most games seem to have the winning team hitting 2 or 3 goals. We also know from SI's posts about their internal testing that goals per game across their bulk testing is generally right for the main leagues that most people are playing. So there's a question of why some people are still seeing very high scoring games and some aren't. There's also the question of what happens if SI listen to the 'too many goals' crowd again with this ME. We've already seen that the first patch, as well as reducing goal numbers, has also reduced variety in the play seen in the ME. Some of the play seen in the early ME is just not there any more, possibly because the probability thresholds are cutting off some options, meaning riskier options are not being taken. The ME is significantly more predictable in its patterns of play than the pre-patch iteration. The danger with pandering to the 'too many goals' crowd again is that we end up with a very dull and predictable ME (we've already taken a step in that direction) or that attacking play gets totally nerfed and we go back to something resembling the dreadful ME of FM20.

The thing is there's one ME and it applies to all leagues. As FM is meant to be a simulation the scores have to be naturally generated out of the ME - trying to massage the outputs for specific leagues just to maintain the stats would be faking things - it would no longer be a simulation. You really need to ask why scores are lower in those games and then apply tweaks to the inputs to the ME. So are researchers giving those players too high attribute ratings, are managers playing less cautiously than IRL? Is the ME lacking a broad enough range of outcomes for different attribute levels? These could all be factors, but where trends in particular leagues lead to higher or lower scoring SI need to understand what leads to that difference in football culture and either the inputs to the ME or the balance of the ME calculations needs to change to allow it to generate closer to IRL outcomes. If all you do is manipulate the outcomes then you negate the effect that manager changes could make - e.g. an influx of attack-minded managers taking over clubs in a traditionally low-scoring, defensively-minded league. And. of course, the more seasons you play, the more your FM world diverges from reality so after the first couple of seasons comparisons to real-life become meaningless.

An FM stat is never too low, nor is it too high. It is precisely at the level it is meant to be.

This is one of those things you just end up taking for granted when you play FM, but you're right - the game always shows its English 90s 4-4-2 DNA - every version of the ME just loves to launch aerial balls from the wings (usually to the far post). It's one of the reasons why 'heading-monster' type strikers are always wildly over-successful in FM compared to their quick, technical counterparts. And why a tall IF with good heading can often end up your top scorer. To be fair to FM24, the tendency does seem to have been tamed a little - I see far more ground-level pull-backs from players in wide advanced area than I used to do. The automatic lofted ball into the area every attack does seem to have reduced in frequency (at least in my current save).

Only the positions tab refers to players. Unless I'm missing something the assists screen just shows areas of the pitch that the assist came from, so the player making the assist is irrelevant to the stats, only the area of the pitch they make it from - could be a defender recycling a ball from a corner for all that tells you - they just need to be in the zone just outside the area when they make the pass.

On the goals/assists thing - here's mine. Thanks to the person that pointed out this screen's location - I knew it was in the game, but couldn't remember how to get to it (damn FMs nests of screens!), Goal locations: ... and corresponding assist locations

Nope. Maybe has the same tactic screen layout (I don't know the skin you're referring to), but I'm using SAS24.

The skin is SAS24 - really nicely put together skin. (That screenshot is from my save)

No problem. I mix things up depending on how games are going so I sometimes have one of the DMs switch to a Segundo Volante (AT) which changes the thrust of the attack - probably gives the effect you're talking about with the AMC shifting to the side.

You're right about him taking corners (at least some of the time - depends who else is on the pitch). Tactic is nothing special and there's no PIs on the AMC: AMC stats:

I guess it must be down to the the players/roles elsewhere in the team because my AMC (an AM(At) in a 4-2-3-1 DM) is the absolute star of the show. Last season joint top scorer; most assists and highest rating. This season (only 5 games so far) already top scorer and highest rated - only joint leader on assists so far. What may be part of the reason is that my AMC is the best player in the team by quite a margin, so maybe that means the ME focuses more play through him than if I had more comparable level players around him. I guess I'll find out as I strengthen the squad and my high potential young players improve..

The pre-game editor needs to be integrated into the main game so that you can make mid-save league structure and rule changes for future seasons to spice up long-term saves.

For an 'easy game' in which a lot of players will gravitate towards the top level clubs the number of people with the 'won a domestic league' steam achievement seems pretty low at 38% ...

If that's the case it's great timing for me - I'm just finishing up a season. Always better if an update hits between seasons as you've got pre-season to see if the changes have messed with your tactic.