rp1966

Virtual monkeys rolling dice - that's what's behind the curtain.

I'm not sure whether the goals come from open play or set pieces really matters that much in a versus 10-man situation. Conceding lots of set pieces is a sign of a team being under pressure and you'd expect that to be the case in an 11 vs 10 situation. So it may just be that you see more set piece goals because there are overall more set piece chances being created - not that 10 men are significantly worse at defending them. Would need stats gathering and experimental saves to see what the truth actually is.

I would certainly expect a lot of the logic to be carried over as is - it has had 20+ years of evolution to get where it is - but I would hope that the process of moving that code across to Unity has forced them to clean up some of the accumulated technical debt (and associated long-term bugs) that must be there. I guess we'll find out - I have pretty low expectations given the shift to a new platform, but I'm hoping it's going to mark a clear generational shift from FM24.

The trouble with FM Classic/Touch was that one of the key things it 'watered down' was the database and the ability to customise the gameworld via the pre-game editor. It was always a top request for FM Classic/Touch and was why many who preferred the more streamlined approach of FMC/FMT returned to the full-fat version. As far as FM25 is concerned I would hope that it has been written in a much more modular fashion and that an FMC/FMT type experience can be provided as a game mode within the full game - should be possible with an appropriate skin reducing UI options and a bypass on the unwanted (mainly interaction) modules by applying a neutral outcome to anything where the full game would go through the bypassed modules. I can't see 2D being done away with - it's a useful diagnostic view when working out the way a tactic behaves, but the 'dotties' need to give it up if they think 3D isn't going to become an even bigger focus in FM25 - people want a match visualiser that looks like real football. My main hope for FM25 (beyond not being the utter bugfest I'm expecting it to be) is that SI have worked out a new approach to the UI which reduces the depth of screen nesting that FM increasingly suffers from. The SAS24 skin does a good job of providing access to lots of data from single screens by switching data in a panel and avoiding going down hierarchies of screens - maybe SI will have taken some ideas from there.

That's surprising. Free kicks, left-footed, about 20 yards out right of centre always seem to be really dangerous - they either fly into the top corner or the goalkeeper flies like superman to tip it away with his fingertips right in the corner. You can always tell it's going to happen because the wall looks fractionally too far to the left.

Not as many since I switched from a West Ham save with James Ward-Prowse on set-pieces to my current Sapporo save without a set-piece expert, but still see my fair share of direct free kick goals for and against.

The lighting changes have been mentioned a few times in this and the beta (sorry, early access) thread and it's been changed from FM23, but is still bad, probably due to the underlying engine we've had since FM18 when the match visualiser went backwards in graphical quality. The 'fog' seems to be a filter that's applied to most matches (I think I've seen some sunny day matches without it) . In my West Ham beta save it was applied to pretty much every match along with the faded, barely visible, shadows, as every match was in overcast weather. Since I've started my Japan save I've had a bit more variety. but the fundamental problems of this graphics engine are pretty much impossible to overcome. The new remix has the fog effect, some variation in shadows - most games seemingly with faded shadows that go some way to hiding the fact that there still isn't any proper sun tracking or variation in stadium orientation. The only real change in shadows is that they seem to have flipped the lighting rig/camera direction so the shadows now come from the right and front instead of left and back. Night-time is still day with 'cross' shadows representing floodlights (that don't match the actual placement of the lights in many of the stadiums). Basically, there's no way for them to make a silk purse out of this particular sow's ear and most people have given up commenting on it hoping that FM25 and the Unity engine will give us a major step up in lighting quality when that arrives. It's really a shame because the player models and animations are really good and deserve a better environment.

Yeah, the whole facepaint and small decorative items for the avatar that can never be seen in game is just such a strange decision. I suppose at least the face paint can be seen as there are screens where your manager's head appears, but rings etc. are only ever seen on the avatar build screen. But SI often make weird decisions - here's a really minor cosmetic one - makes absolutely no difference to anyone, but is just odd decision making. In player celebrations you'll probably have noticed there's one where a player runs over to the corner flag and does an Irish jig - now I can count the number of times I've seen that celebration IRL on the fingers of no hands. What I do see every matchday, and even multiple times in a single game, is a knee slide. Yet there's no knee slide celebration in FM, Someone has taken a decision to go "knee slide. no. Irish jig yes.". Just weird decision making - this is a trivial example, but it permeates throughout the game. Odd prioritisation of some things and ignoring others (like not ensuring that every licensed league works 100% each edition (how is that not a contractual condition of the license?))

I believe stamina is fixed as it is a player attribute, not an in-match variable. It is used to determine the rate that fatigue increases in game - so high stamina; slow increase in fatigue and low stamina; fast increase in fatigue. Back when SI were talking about having nerfed gegenpress there was also talk of fatigue varying depending on how much running/pressing a player was doing. Again I'd expect the rate of fatigue to be (part) determined by a player's stamina attribute. EDIT - Just seen Jack Joyce's response. I maybe should have used condition rather than fatigue.

I created a bug report, but I don't have a save from before it happened, I'm afraid.

This is a weird one ... Manager timeline is saying that I reached the final of the J League Cup, but I didn't. I was beaten in the second leg and went out in the semi-final. Manager timeline has only taken into account the first leg.

In my Sapporo save, in the first season I've had 8 games that have finished with a scoreline to nil including one 0-0. They do happen, but not as frequently as they probably should (particularly 1-0/2-0 scorelines)- some tuning needed. On the plus side - think of all those clean sheet bonuses you're not having to pay

That looks like someone putting the page together has swapped the team name string placeholders around. I see the same sort of thing frequently in the match text commentary where there's a string relating to each team, but they zip past too quickly to screen grab them.

The lack of logic to the changes and the fact that the FM24 value is all the same looks very much like someone has ballsed up a bulk update in the database.

I played as West Ham during the beta period and also had a notification that the board wanted to build a new stadium at the end of season one.

Could be right - detail level was 'mixed'. Have bumped it up to 'competitive matches'. In J1 where I'm playing GPG range is 2.67 - 1.1 and conversion rate from 23% to 13% and for South Korean K1 league which is also full detail GPG 3.17 - 1.12 and conversion rate 21%-11% (European leagues on full detail aren't playing yet)

I guess it's pretty variable - this is my Brazillian Serie A after 21 games ... Goals per game is on the low side, too ...

A few editions back I went on big rant about reputation - it definitely causes massive issues in so many places across the game related to development and recruitment. My suggestion was as reputation in game is basically a long-term measure it should be matched with a short-term equivalent which I referred to as 'hype'. That way you could have a system that made reputation like decisions but based on much shorter term changes in manager/team/player performance and also based player choices of team for transfers and manager choices of player/team based on varying susceptibility to hype around a player or manager. (Maybe it could be done with more bias towards recent form in the decision making algorithm).

Changes in the main game code can affect the parameters passed into the match engine, so that could explain different play in the same ME but a different patch level in the main game. Might just be the randomness of RNG that's giving things a different feel in your game, though.

I enjoyed playing FM24 in the beta and am still enjoying it even though I'm now playing in the incomplete J-League (my thinking is that the graphics will appear if/when SI release them and I don't really know enough about the players in the J-League for the squad inaccuracies to make a difference to my game play). With FM25 being a new engine (with all the problems that is likely to cause - think Maxis' attempts to go 3D with city builders) I never expected anything from FM24 beyond being a subtle remix of FM23. The ME improvements are welcome; some of the newly introduced bugs and continuation of FM23 issues less so, but I'm having fun with it so nothing so annoying that I feel the need to post about it (yet). The redone lighting is still hobbled by the fundamental approach so it's still bad, just different bad.

Probably going to start a new save game in Japan, which was my initial plan when I found that the J League was back. Going to be a wrench to give up my West Ham beta save, though - I'm just at the stage where I've added some key new players for the future and am getting attached to the squad.

Wasn't it more a case of winning the EPL with a generic almost totally new squad of FM24 well-known rated player recruits in the Jan and summer windows plus some remnants of Brighton? (2nd season, not first) Not that total rebuilds aren't valid - just that you always seem to end up with very similar FMxx squads every time it's done (e.g. both Lollujo and WTS having Perri in goal and Tammy Abraham and Evan Ferguson as strikers)

Finished my first season in FM24 and this year's game seems pretty good. ME is very good - some better animations and a really good variety of play, Goals scored do seem a little on the high side, but I'd worry that changing it to reduce the number of goals would reduce variety so I'd rather live with it. The lighting changes in the match visualiser don't seem to be implemented particularly well - I can see the new haze effect on virtually all matches, and the faded shadows for overcast days is an added variation that wasn't there before. However, in my game every game for the whole season was overcast (I know it's a cliché about UK weather that it's always grey and drizzly, but there should have been some clear days in a whole season) - so I didn't see a single game with sun and hard shadows to help judge what else had changed (from teh faded shadows looks like shadow direction is different this year). I haven't had the team meltdowns in interactions that some people have experienced. I have noticed that players seem a little more sensitive to harsh team talks which caught me out a couple of times. Changes to transfers with intermediaries is a positive change - I seem to have been able to move on players a little more easily than in the last couple of versions. Like most people I am concerned about what player development will be like this year, but I'll have to get much deeper into my save to be able to make a judgement on that. Overall FM24 seems to be a slight step up from FM23. The ME is the biggest plus point for me.

Haven't finished a season yet (FM competing for gaming time with Cities: Skylines II this year), but I've seen the end of season summary in a couple of YouTube videos, so should be there. Is your save an imported FM23 one (maybe that's an issue)?

I thought that report looked wrong so just checked my game - only in Feb and top 4 in the EPL have >10 clean sheets each (Man City best with 15 so far). Unless something very weird has happened in mrpompey's game it would seem to be a mistake.