jmlima

Yup. Just about sums it up. Loads and loads more examples could be added to that list, but that's really the gist of the issues surrounding squad management, transfers and squad selection. For all the eye candy and loads of screens with random stats, people in the game are still unable to behave like real people do, or even come to a semblance of it. And the game is about managing people so...

Correct nation list, correct transfer system, correct squad selection rules, correct foreigner rules, correct international cups, correct stadiums.

RPGs have been trying to do interaction for aeons and they are still lackluster, repetitive and scripted. It's little wonder SI did not fare any better. I mean, they are no different from staff meetings, player meetings and other forms of interaction in the game. Don;t think the model has much improvement that can be done other than in what regards the choice of questions by the engine. Introducing AI would be a can of worms since measuring answer and then imputing that into the calcs to obtain the results in terms of mods would be akin to impossible. I mean you could use a parser but then someone would discover the 'magic words' and answer would become a selection of random words that would deliver max effect in the calcs. And we would be back to this thread.

Quite. And that is something you see every weekend when crap teams try to imitate the playing style of the top teams.

Trust me. People prefer winning to grinding.

Just imagine a realistic management game in which you are at the whims of events totally out of your control, implementing a new tactical system takes ages and sometimes fails entirely, scouting is a bit of a crystal ball at lower levels, and transfers do not allow you to stockpile those 'wonderkids' as soon as the game starts... not popular probably.

Not sure if it was much more difficult but, think the argument is that there should have been some significant progress re AI management, transfer realism, scouting realism, etc. That, by itself would make the game harder. If the difficulty stays the same and the human player is better, then the game will feel ever easier.

Neither did CK, until it showed-up as a DLC... Honestly, re 3d, I would settle for the stadiums to have any passing resemblance to the actual stadiums clubs play in. Of course, in this day and age, I can see all sorts of issues re architectural copyright to come up from that, so I don't expect it to happen.

It's not bad, it's just different. Games are not static, the time where you could deploy one of those old style spreadsheet games and sell it on the scale that FM currently sells is well and truly dead. You can still get away in some types of games with tedious and spreadsheet (see crusader kings, EU, stellaris) and, if it wasn't for the specific mention of graphics being a driver, I could see FM continue as we know it. But I find really hard to justify such a monumental move as this for the sake of graphics, if graphics are not going to be driving your game going forwards. I also forgot something, I can see 3d graphics starting to be more integrated into the UI, can be as tacky as making the staff meetings with 3d chars (let's hope not as that always looks tacky as hell, just look at those throne rooms in CK...) but that is also something that will certainly feature more and more going forward. Perhaps your player screen will now feature the player's 3d model for example. That sort of eye candy.

Pretty much a crystal ball exercise. Going into unity means you are trading full control over your engine, for something else. In this instance it seems it's graphics. Only SI can evaluate that side of things. I honestly never expected that if you were looking for a graphics engine your choice would be unity so, there must be more behind it. I suspect easier multi-platform development. They will for sure be more focused in getting everything to work rather than adding new variables into this already complex equation. I'm not sure what was the base language for FM and how easy they can port that into unity. If it's not a direct(ish) port that can be such a monumental task that I'm not sure how it could be completed in the stated timeframes, without some horrendous investment in development. (I wouldn't want to be the one financing such a task.) Now, for the games I know better (wargames, the hard core type) every single one that is done in unity suffers from being sluggish, simplistic, 'light', when compared to their peers done in proprietary c++ or even delphi engines. They do not look any better. That might be down to the fact that the wargame companies that tend to use unity are the ones that either see in it as an advantage for one of two reasons: multi platform or that it simplifies their development environment. No one thinks unity by itself will deliver a better game, they just know it delivers a better game than they would otherwise be able to do. I expect, in the long run, a 'lighter' game that will start to become more and more a portable / console game and less of a PC spreadsheet game. Focusing on graphics possibly also means a long-term aim to have the 3d action become more central to the game. Again, crystal ball. Edit to say, Every unity game I have also has ginourmous patches. So be ready for that. As an example, just recently, mtg arena had a 7gb patch (pretty much the size of the entire game).

Think so much work is going into migrating into the new engine that new features, most of all significant ones, are a pipe dream.

Playing devil's advocate, we also need to remember that obtaining that type of outcome works well for sales. Players prefer to win rather than lose and, if they have an impression that the game is veryyyy complex (ie, by the game having loads of numbers, screens and options) and still obtain a great outcome they will prefer it to the opposite, which is a grinding game where your survival as manager is at sometimes at the whims of a temperamental president / ceo and largely out of your control... Talking from my own experience with video game players, the illusion of difficulty with the reward of a win is preferred to the reality of difficulty and a highly variable sometimes feel-bad outcome. It's a delicate balance SI must thread on that front. The people that post in forums (more so those very vocal) are a tiny, tiny minority of the overall player universe so, if sales are going well, those half-a-dozen guys moaning and bitching in forums will never be heard. Again, companies do a good job these days with a legion of moderators in the big games boards, discords, etc giving a good pretence of listening, much like Frasier Crane's 'I'm listening'. I think the sheer longevity of the game series speaks volumes to the fact that, even if too easy and unrealistic, SI know what they are doing when it comes to delivering a good football management themed game (emphasis on game) that will sell well.

Think the problems are a trifecta. On one hand it's dead easy to find and sign players. At any level. Way, way worse of a problem at the highest levels. In reality, scouting is massively difficult and costly and that's why local clubs resort to local / same division players and don't go searching for players around the country or even the continent. I also think players are wayyyyy overrated. There should be a much more dramatic difference between player levels. Some small leagues have players that are either way too good when compared to reality, or top clubs in europe are drunk and have never heard of them. On the other hand, tactics and tactical alterations are far too easy to implement. I've never seen the 'learning gap' between you deciding to go from a 4-4-2 kick-and-rush into a 4-2-3-1 tiki-taka be of any significance in the game. The third, you have far, far too much information at the tips of your fingers. I mean, in FM my local club can field an analyst that provides excruciatingly detailed analysis of everything under the sun. In reality they can barely pay the manager, let alone anyone else. Disclaimer. Many of the impressions we gather are our own experience with the game, they may not be anyone else's.

Great job doing this so quickly!