StatboySpurs

Much obliged!

This is a great skin, thanks. FWIW, I'm using the no attributes version, but you can still see each player's numerical attributes in the progress tab. Is that an easy fix? It's hard to stop myself from cheating haha.

I don't know exactly what the disconnect is, but scouting is definitely not working for me, and I do things exactly as I did them in FM23. If it was designed to be harder this year, that's fine. I would actually favor it being a bit harder to find wonderkids and such, especially in different continents, but it's current level is not only too hard, as shown in my uploaded save, it's basically non-existent. If we are doing it wrong for this year's version, someone from SI needs to let us know exactly what is going wrong, and not just tell us to use a more broad focus. Give us a post, with screenshot examples, of EXACTLY what we need to do. Or better yet, use the SI YouTube video to do a video. That would probably be the most helpful.

After my quick test last night with the same team I always manage, with the new patch, I think it's just broken. 6 weeks scouting with four scouts in the top division in Norway, and not a single recommendation for my FC Nordsjaelland team. So you're telling me that my four scouts with full knowledge of Norway could not find a single suitable interested player in Norway? It doesn't make sense. If we're doing something wrong with setting up scouting focuses, then I would 100% welcome a step-by-step instructional guide on exactly how they should be set up.

Ok, I've messed around with a save. I've got four scouts with full knowledge of Norway scouting the top division, with four analysts as well. Scouting for any position for any tactic. Minimum 3-star PA, and I've flipped around on the minimum CA to be 1-star for two weeks, 1.5-stars for two weeks, and 2-stars for two weeks. Ongoing priority. My scouts have come up with exactly zero recommendations. In fact, it tells me that I've scouted 73 total players, but when I scroll through them not a single one of them are playing in the Norwegian league, which I know isn't accurate because there are currently three players in the "in progress" tab. The 73 players that are scouted are either in Denmark, or free agents (I assumed they are there due to previous knowledge of the scouts I hired). But not a single recommendation from my scouting focus, and not a single near match. I used to get plenty of results when I used this method in FM23, and when I transferred my FM23 save into FM24. I've uploaded the save called FC Nordsjaelland - Norway Scouting to the cloud.

I haven't played the game in a month, but as I said earlier, I was having much more success finding players by sending my scouts to individual games. I could assign four scouts to scout Norway and not get many results; but if I individually sent sent four scouts to scout particular games in Norway, I would get a lot more results. I have not changed my scouting methods at all from the past; they just stopped finding players. I always used the "ongoing" focus, FWIW. Maybe the scouts just don't know where to go. Maybe they are spending too much time in the third division instead of the top division, haha. I don't know. But I found I had a lot more success by individually assigning them to watch certain games. It's really not a big deal because I only have four scouts, so it doesn't take up much time. But if I had a lot more scouts, I'm sure it would be more annoying. At any rate, I'll fire up a test save this weekend and see if anything has changed for me. I appreciate the team looking into the issues.

I haven't played in several weeks because the scouting was too frustrating, but playing in Denmark, I was going through and scouting individual games in Denmark, Norway and Sweden. Assigning scouts to individual games day by day is tedious, but I found that I got much better results this way. I don't know what changed with scouting, because I wasn't having this trouble when FM24 was first released (though I was playing with an imported save, so not sure if that has anything to do with it.). So yeah, it's tedious...but at the same time it can be kind of fun. Granted, I only have four scouts and am only allowed to scout northern Europe, so it doesn't take too long. If you have a dozen scouts and can scout all of Europe or the entire world, that would be extremely annoying.

That's pretty much what I'm getting. Managing in Denmark, scouting Denmark, Sweden and Norway, one scout in each country with extensive knowledge, half-star minimum CA and 2-star minimum PA, and I'm hardly getting anything at all. I've since scrubbed that save and I'm going to start a new one and just do manual scouting, but I guess I'll try it with what @Lam3r suggested first and let my chief scout run things. But at any rate, things have definitely changed since one of the patches. I'm not doing anything differently when it comes to scouting. I fact, I've adjusted the star ratings so that theoretically more players should show up.

Try the Increased Realisim Mod...

Definitely needs to be nerfed, IMO. Especially when starting a new saved with the transfer window closed, and you literally have no budget to hand out new contracts. But what really bothers me is that if I hand my player contracts over to my GM and it's up to him to re-sign players, but they still come to me to complain and turn against me when they don't get one. If they want to complain to me, fine, but I need to have the option to say "the GM handles the player contacts, not the manager". So yeah, I'd like to see that feature nerfed, though it shouldn't completely disappear. I think it is something that does happen, but I don't think it happens nearly as often as it does in the game. If they can nerf that and fix the scouting in the next update I would be really happy.

Fired up an unemployed save last night, and after 10 or so games I checked Spurs. Noticed that Udogie is rotting on the bench on the U-21s, while Sarr barely plays either. Royal is also chosen over Porro in every single match. Udogie and Sarr look like the need decent ratings bumps in the winter update, and I'm guessing that will happen. Until then, I may give them both a tweak in the editor. But I want to be careful because I don't want to be totally biased and go overboard.

One of my personal rules is that I can't use any formation that the AI can't use. I used to do that some, but it felt like I was exploiting the game.

Yeah, I think that is correct. First I was at FC Nordsjaelland, and the 0% fringe offers were from teams in lower leagues. Now I took the Tottenham job, and all of those same offers are from teams in lower divisions. I think it's a bug, and even if they take them as fringe players they will still play them regularly. But I've found that if I can negotiate it up to "regular starter". I have to ask twice each time, though.

Since the latest patch, nearly all offers are for 0% of wages and "fringe player" playing time. I can negotiate almost every single one up to "regular starter" but for me it seems like all of the default offers are for nothing and for "fringe player". That's been my experience.

Beautiful skin. But for some reason I can't get the bar attributes to work even after copying the panels over.

That's probably right. I had success with it in FM23 for some reason, though it never made sense to me. So I stuck with it. Tried the same thing in FM24 and got burned.

Ah, ok! Well in that case, "Drop Off More" worked well for me in FM23 so give it a shot!

I had success in FM23 with "drop off more" but in FM24 I seemed to allow more long shots with that instruction. So I unticked it, and now I'm conceding more in other ways. Basically in FM24 I'm not defending anywhere near as well as I did in FM23. That's with an imported save. I dominated in FM23, but immediately started conceding in FM24. I've tried several different tactics, restarting the imported save each time. And it's kind of the same each time. I'm still 2nd in the league in goals conceded, but in FM23 I was in first by a wide margin. I do keep some clean sheets, but I feel like it's more about out-talenting the other team than anything else. I'm not a tactical guru, but I'm not bad at it either. So I wonder if it's just an FM24 thing. I've seen others suggesting as such. Maybe push the defensive line higher AND tick drop off more?

Yeah, you are within shouting distance of the top four, so you don't need to do too much. Just a personal preference, but I do like the halfback. Your wingbacks bombing up will leave space down the flanks, and since the halfback drops between the two CBs in possession, the CBs move wider. That helps alleviate some of that threat down the flank. Also, I never use two playmakers next to each other, though some people swear by it. I'd probably switch one of them to a box to box or mezzala on support. It would be nice to have a little more scoring threat from midfield. I consider myself fairly mediocre at tactics, but that's what I'd try.

How have things been going defensively? Personally, I love a good halfback to slot into a back three when I'm using two wingbacks to get high up the pitch. Makes things a bit more stable at the back, IMO.

Glad to hear, that's what I was curious about. I have multiple edited nation files, plus the Daveincid realism files, so I was wondering how that type of transfer would work.

He was solid for me in a similar role last year, but yeah, his ideal position is as a DM. But Dorgeles is really good, just got his first Ghana cap, and is listed as one of the Top 50 wonderkids (which I know certainly isn't an exact list). I do have an issue with natural goal scorers on the team. I'm using Musterman's graphical skin, so I can't see the exact numbers. At absolute best, my top guys are a 15 in finishing, but the number could be anywhere between 12 and 15. What I should probably do is switch Rodriguez to an advanced forward and have Diamonde on support, with Kofod as Box to Box. That probably gets those key guys in their most suitable roles.

Good points. I'm in the preseason, so I can do some experimenting. Thanks.

Great thread, I enjoyed reading through it. I need a reset on my 4-3-3 for my upcoming season. Any comments on this one?

Love the MPGD skin, thanks a lot. My only feedback is that I'd like to be able to easily see the player's birthday on there somewhere, so that I know if a 17-year old is soon turning 18 or if he's only recently turned 17, and stuff like that. Thanks for your hard work.