Zoolok42

I understand what you mean, but I wasn't clear enough again You can accidentally set up a tactic that is great, but because of an exploit that you are not aware of. However, I also think you can set up a tactic and then have your striker not score goals because of a hidden issue with the match engine that, again, you are not aware exists. I used the word "exploit" for that, as well, but I guess "bug" would be a better term. What I see happen in FM a lot is tactics stopping to be effective after a patch, which is usually attributed to the tactic working because it used an "exploit" in the previous version of the game. What we never do is check if a tactic that didn't work in the past, now suddenly works, because of the changes in the match engine, or at least I can't remember many such cases off the top of my head. I started playing this game way back in the Championship Manager era, and these things have remained the same (in all honesty, they are a little bit worse with all the added features in the game since those days - I really miss the simple with and without ball instructions). We still do need a glossary, but we specifically need a glossary of what the team (or the one man in charge) means when they describe things in the game. Often you will get a good tactic if you understand what they mean when they say things like "press more often", instead of using your own definition and intuition. That said, the last two versions (this one and the previous), I only played the demos. The difference between the versions has become miniscule, and there are so many added boilerplate features that the game has become a chore to play. I am also older, so it's harder to not notice and be annoyed by some things

Sorry, I wasn't clear enough. The point I tried to make is that "it's your tactics" is not a valid argument in a game that has tactical exploits because AI can't handle it. The thing is, issues with tactics go both ways, so someone can setup a perfectly valid tactic and then fail in the game because the "exploit" is working against them in this case, if you know what I mean? It's not always the case, but I don't think anyone can guarantee that it can be completely disregarded either.

How do you know it's not your tactics, meaning how do you know you aren't really using an exploit by accident, instead of having a working tactic? I am not pointing fingers, but I was always curious about these "it's your tactics" arguments in a game that is known to have tactical exploits against AI.

It's not an abomination. As an employee, you want to get the best terms you think each possible future employer can offer you, when all factors are taken into consideration. Why is it an abomination?

I am pretty sure that all the pointless sarcasm and cynicism (and the overall terrible human communication and interaction in the game) all come from one person in SI who thinks that is how people communicate.

FM is already a subscription in everything but the name, it has been that for years. You pay 60 euros per year (or whatever) for 12 months of patches and 1-2 database updates. Patches are bugfixes with a minor new feature every now and then. I am not sure how this isn't already seen as a subscription model, because they sell basically the same game every year. You would have to go a few years in the past to notice any major differences between FM 24 and an older FM. An opposite example would be Civilization, for instance, because the differences between Civilization 4, 5, and 6 are enormous, it's a totally different game, on the same topic, and they come out every 5-6 years, not every year at the same time, like FM does. Essentially, every game that comes out every year at the same time with minor differences is a subscription game, regardless of how they want to call it.

It's not "scripted" in a sense that there is nothing you can do about it, but it also isn't the case that everything is decided in real time. However, since you can replay the same match without touching anything, and you will get different outcomes, it also means that there is a random element to it, a random seed that is used in calculations. On the other hand, a "script" is also the word to use in a different meaning - every time something happens, it does look like it's not natural, but instead the game picks a pre-determined script to execute in that moment (out of a selection of thousands)? More like a "scenario" than a script, and I think this is visible after you play a lot of matches that some virtually identical pieces of play start repeating. But does the game decide in advance that you will win or lose and nothing you do can change it? No, in that sense I do not believe it is "scripted", it does respond to user input. You are essentially fighting against that random seed, but who is to say that's not how life works in general?

He is Excellent Tired Fresh, clear as day. It fits in perfectly with their mental issues they all seem to be having this year as well

I actually played the previous editions on Nintendo Switch the most, so you are completely right. This time I got a refund though, I'll get Diablo 4 instead, and I'll see what FM25 will bring.

I would not be surprised if they add that as a feature down the line, I honestly think they've lost the plot a little bit. I get it that being a football manager means having meetings and emails, but that will never be fun to "play", especially not when it's presented as an accounting spreadsheet with predefined sentences that don't always mean what you think they mean. But I get it that younger audiences haven't yet had the pleasure of attending a meeting in their life, so it's interesting to them (at first, at least, I honestly think it gets very tiring very quickly to have identical meetings with clickable sentences to everyone), which is why I say I'm probably not the target demographic any more. And then the actual match is skipped almost completely and/or watched in high speed because it just takes too long to watch 10 football matches a day, which means the majority of the gameplay is spent in clicking ugly menus and doing anything but actually managing a match. So, as I said, I honestly think they are losing the plot a little bit, administrative tasks have become the centerpiece of the game.

I skipped the last year's edition, as the one before (FM 22) didn't give me all that much fun as it used to, so I thought to give FM24 a shot, and after three hours, it's the same game as FM22 - Infinite clicks to do infinite chores in convoluted menus that look like Windows 95. Being a football manager is boring, if it is to be judged by this game, although I can also accept that, in my middle-age part of life, I am no longer the target audience. It's just so boring and repetitive to "play" this chore of a game, and it's not simple enough to pick it up for 20 minutes and then do something else, you really have to invest yourself and your time into infinite menus to get to the match, that you skip most of in the end, anyway. I guess this isn't for me any more, which is something I never thought I would say, since my first one was CM3. Bonus points for manager having face paint, I am sure that was the bit that was separating FM from greatness

I'd say that the best proof that the match engine is doing football right is the fact that everyone has their own opinion on it

Yeah, and also, if the match engine really has millions of lines of code, then it's pretty much unmaintainable at this point, and it's no wonder it takes ages for them for the simplest tweaks.

That really doesn't look all that much better, especially not like a 10 years worth of work and improvement.

Holy .... That second one is hilarious

Oh, I've learned how to use it in the game, but what I'm trying to say is it's basically an opinion of someone who made the game? If that makes sense? I know how to use it to my advantage, but I don't understand how they come up with values they do. This goes for a lot of things in the game, like mentality, or "be more expressive" instruction, off the top of my head.

Not entirely related to your comment, but I've always wondered what those two bars at the top right mean and where are they coming from. Like, what does it mean when the Intensity bar is 50% full? And where does the judgment on how "intense" a tactic is come from? Same for Familiarity, I understand these are real-life items, but I don't understand how they are presented in the game and how the in-game values of them map to values in real-life. And who is doing the mapping? The assistant manager? It feels like a lot of things in FM come from basically one person's understanding of football, and if you don't match with that understanding, you're in for a bad time.

Yup, you can't sign them until they can qualify for a work permit. You can sign them, I think, but can't actually play them. Before Brexit, the way around it is to loan them to a club that can grant them applicable citizenship quickly enough (~3 years), so that they get a UK work permit easier, but I'm not sure you can even do that now.

We don't have clients like this, though our market is grown-ups. I'm guessing everyone calling the game "unplayable" is at mid-20s at most. We also write completely different software, mostly for financial institutions, so we have the luxury of having an exact rule-set we have to follow so our code either works or doesn't, there is no room for interpretation, like there is with football simulators (and, as I've said, football in real life). So yes, if our clients say that the button doesn't work, it's easy to check and they don't tell me the software is "unusable". Here, it has to do a lot with your own personal interpretation of football, so you'll never be entirely happy.

And we're also real life-player-managers.

"If the patch was published, we'd have won." -- Mexican FA probably

I work in software development too, and I can tell you you're full of it. Every whiner in here is insufferable. But to get to the point: The game does not have "major bugs". Major bugs are ones where the game crashes or doesn't start or has UI elements that don't work. Major bugs were when CM4 showed up and the game result would change after half-time. These things don't happen with FM. Defenders occasionally making a mistake or a bit more often than usual is not a "major bug". As a software developer, you should know this. Software estimates are hard - something you yourself point out. There are too many unknown unknowns, though SI does have the luxury of knowing their domain entirely and working essentially on one product for a few platforms. They're not that much affected by external forces, like some other IT companies are. And of course they use their previous experience, why the hell do you think they don't? The game is definitely "playable". Unless you got zero hours out of it since you bought it, you have played your heart out of it. With football in general, everyone will have their own idea on what it's "supposed" to look like, even more so with simulated football, so you will never be entirely happy with any football simulation until you learn to relax and have fun, and give a pat on the back to your fellow developers that try to simulate a game that, in real life, has rules open to interpretations and opinions. It's an impossible task they've taken on themselves and their end result is phenomenal and yet, here you are, taking a dump on it. As a client, you're, again, insufferable.

Well, were the punches being thrown or not, where the hell did the commentary get that from? [edit] Oh and, back in the days of CM, I bought Emile William Ivanhoe Heskey and the first thing he did was punch the referee and get a three-month ban. I hate to say it, but those were the days. Now we get to promise them they'll play as a left ball-playing central defender with squad status of regular starter and ask them to "shoot more often". Bleh.

Try going on holiday for a day.

Ok, making fake mistakes that look real in video games is incredibly difficult, people will always say it doesn't look real and it would never happen like that in real life. But your two cases you posted here look very real to me, like honest to God lapses in concentration. These things happen like this IRL a lot. I haven't bought the game yet (first time I didn't get it on release) because I don't see any convincing reason to upgrade, so I can't comment on the other things, but the two examples look really well done to me.