rp1966

Still haven't played enough to form firm opinions about FM24 (only halfway through first season; seems pretty good so far), but just wanted to say I really like the inbox item when a team in your league appoints a new manager - it helps make the world outside your club feel more alive. Nice addition.

Looks like you haven't got the right filter selected before exporting. RTF for NewGAN looks like this (UID is what ties the image to the player):

The announcement was interesting. Some acknowledgement that FM has been left behind as the gaming world moved on. FM24 continue save game is a nice feature (hopefully problems with player development will have been fixed so that it is worth carrying on). FM25 is clearly going to be a major change with a whole new software engine and the introduction of women's football. We'll have to see what that brings, but mention of both graphical and UI improvement enabled by Unity seems to address some of the concern expressed as part of FM23 feedback.

Cities Skylines II - October 24th. Very likely I'll be skipping FM24 at launch now - no time for both.

Depends what you want from a stadium editor. If you think you can have the equivalent of adding buildings into Cities: Skylines I think you'll be forever out of luck. From what I can see the limitations are technical rather than licensing* and relate to how the stadiums are built in game. Clearly there's a construction kit approach - stadiums get built from the kit parts based on capacity and location in the world. They also get colour coded to the club, get buildings and trees added based on location and have to be compatible with the crowd generation mechanics, placement of the bench and other objects around the pitch and the pitch itself. There's a big argument that the design of the stadium 'kits' could (and should) be more architecturally convincing, have greater variety of designs, and there's definitely a need for better representation of lower league grounds (as a lot of women's football takes place on what are essentially training grounds that may improve when women's football comes along). I think we should definitely have access to edit stadiums within the confines of the current (kit-based) model - i.e the stadium page in game should have an edit stadium button that would take you into an editor that would allow you to switch the stands around within the capacity limits. But, as I said at the start, if you want to be able to add a replica stadium built in Blender I doubt you'll ever get that - SI would need to allow overriding of the kit stadium and incorporate some way of allowing the imported stadium to define crowd placement. * though I'm sure in our insane world of copyright and licensing there is some way to stop a representation of a real stadium if a club is litigious.

Elevation/altitude is in the database under the city - each stadium is associated with a city. I don't think you can see the city details in-game, though for the stadium latitude and longitude are visible. I would imagine the elevation difference would be incorporated into the home/away calculation. Would be interesting to know how the game is using altitude/elevation as your in-game experience suggests it's something you need to take into account if you're playing in the South American continental competitions.

Always play on comprehensive. 'Extended' is OK if you're pushed for time, but I can't really see the point of 'key' unless you're using a plug and play tactic or trying to manage via stats.

Clean sheets not an issue - Chania in Greek 2nd division (loss was in cup to AEK in division above) - if anything, I'm finding my tactics more succesful at this level than they were with either West Ham or Roma before the winter update and starting a new save.

Partly, but SI also have a responsibility to sanity check and balance between the various researchers to ensure a balanced gameworld - some researchers are bound to over-hype the players at their clubs and some will be too restrained.

From the patch list: Improvements to International squad selection logic to help younger players get called up more often Fixed an issue where high CA players retain relatively high physical attributes late in their careers Both of these should help a bit. There's also something else talking about development loans. Don't think it will be a full solution, but a start ...

Timing couldn't be more perfect - I've literally just finished my season with Roma. Time to download the update and start a new save somewhere outside the top 5 leagues.

Like many I was expecting the update to be released last night, but engage 'glass half full' mode - I'll probably be able to close out my season with Roma before the update and that'll be the perfect opportunity to start a new save.

I wonder if this will be fixed ... Press conference dialogue: The league position:

It's a major problem with the game at present - probably the biggest (and there's lots to choose from). Young players just aren't progressing in the U18s/u23s/B team in sufficient numbers to a level where the AI will pick them for the first team so their development stalls. The issue is a combination of raw development and reputation (who'd have thought something in FM was broken because of reputation!) . The player can overcome it to an extent by micromanaging all aspects of youth development, but even then the reputation issue may prevent players getting loan placements that will help them develop, If you're a casual player who doesn't micromanage the youth teams, you're in the same boat as the AI - unless they were generated first-team ready your newgens will not develop to a level where you'll want to choose them for the first-team. Again, you can force the issue and they may turn into a useful first-teamer, but players getting flagged as first-team ready in the development centre rarely are and certainly seem less developed than in previous editions. All of this is amplified by the fact that there are far too many high CA, high reputation >35 year olds hanging about populating all the big teams and shutting out younger players.

Buffon is an exceptional situation - SI's coding has to apply across the whole player base and is probably based on averages across all leagues. There are only so many scenarios they can support. They have already significantly changed the way older players are handled and you now commonly find outfield players continuing to around 37. However, if you've read any of the issues around youth development, you will know that we are paying a very heavy price for the longevity of older players as youth players are now being shut out of teams and failing to develop because the games is still picking the older players due to CA and reputation levels. Until SI rework the reputation system significantly to allow high reputation players to fade away gracefully into lower leagues or be managed out of clubs or into coaching roles to allow youth into the first team we have a real problem and the bulk of the player base, I am guessing, would choose good youth development over old player longevity while SI seem unable to give us both in a way that works.

I do love the transfer module's contrary algorithms ... Young player promoted to 1st team so I can give them league experience - loan offer after loan offer all through the transfer window Young player offered out for loan - option 1 *tumbleweed* Young player offered out for loan -option 2 lowball transfer offers Established player offered out for loan - *tumbleweed* Established player offered for sale - loan offers for £0 High potential young player in the U18s or U21s not offered out at all - lowball transfer offer after lowball transfer offer. OK, I'm exaggerating for effect, but it seems that things are deliberately set up to avoid giving you the type of player movement you are trying to achieve when you have put someone up for loan or transfer and instead generate a ton of emails for movements you don't want to make. I seem to spend most of every transfer window rejecting deals, not making them.

I never like schedules that end up like that, though it's pretty common when you're competing on all fronts. Never like playing the same team multiple times in a row. Not really a situation where you want to instant result any either unless you've already won the two-legged tie in the first game.

Does anyone pay much attention to commentary? I ask because I wonder if anyone can confirm something I think I've seen as commentary messages flash by. Sometimes you'll see a message pop up saying that there is blocking in the box - I'm pretty sure this is always saying that the blocking is by a member of the defending team on another member of the defending team and it's supposed to be defender on attacker. Skips by so quick that I haven't been able to screenshot it or be 100% that I'm interpreting it correctly, but both names are definitely from the same team and I'm sure that's not what it meant to say. Obviously not particularly important, but looks like a string population error (if I've interpreted things correctly).

I'll take you up on that - in terms of the football stuff (tactics, transfers, ME) 75:25 realism to fun (you still want to be able to take a club from non-league to the champions league within a reasonable number of seasons that people are willing to play) On the management stuff - press conferences, player interaction , what a manager can or cannot do in relation to the club - 40:60 realism to fun.

I think the balance shifted from FM21 to FM22 and 23 - strikers do seem to be scoring a greater proportion of the goals. In FM21 the IF/IW positions scored lots of goals - often more than the strikers. It's maybe not coincidence that this shift has arrived with the end of Mané/Salah as the dominant EPL threat and the rise of Haaland.

Strange. I know exactly which free kicks you mean as I'm always nervous when one is given against me.

I expected optimisation of the ME to make it more manageable to be part of the development of the women's game - if they are going to need to tune MEs to support play in both men's and women's games they are going to need to be able to better control outcomes than at present.

Which highlight level do you use? I've definitely seen those hit the top of the wall, be saved or comeback off the crossbar on comprehensive , so they're not guaranteed goals, but they are always threatening so under key highlights maybe they're always seen as goals.

Alongside managing complacency via team talks and press interviews, there's also the timely use of a team meeting which can be very useful if you suddenly lose 2 or 3 games after being on a winning streak.

That's possible - I didn't check it. But even so, in a friendly you wouldn't really expect a player to risked for the whole match even if it was one playing with protection.