tezcatlipoca665

Thanks for checking this, Zachary. You're right - I was able to replicate this on the vanilla version of the game. It's probably one of the mods I'm using, so I'll test these one at a time and see which is giving me grief with these agents. I usually use Davincid's mods but I suspect it's one of the others he recommends using in conjunction with his (probably the 'real agents' mod). EDIT: It's definitely the 'real agents' mod that's been causing me issues with contract negotiations. It didn't in FM23, but it's different this edition, so that's the last time I'll use it lol.

Barca held on to those players for as long as they could - really too long, though it's not like it wasn't successful in the short term while they ran that horse as long as they could before its legs broke. I'd argue that the real problem there is that they tried to hold on to the core group moulded under Pep as opposed to what the AI managers tend to do in this game, which is sell them at bad prices and either don't replace them or bring in players that can play in about 7 positions (and none of them well). Kinda sad to see how Barcelona are now irl - probably not too far removed from the Joan Gaspart days in the next coming seasons at this rate. Idk though, at least that didn't last too long.

Right. It's not even arguable - Moyes brought in, like, two notable first-team players and had no notable outgoings aside from Giggs who retired. The team needed a rebuild about a season or two before Ferguson left; Moyes was given practically no time to do anything, and van Gaal had to struggle against rebuilding with a poor transfer policy that brought in players he wasn't fully invested in, who were being brought in for crazy wages and overpaid transfer fees. Guardiola with Barcelona being used as an example is a joke. When was this 'dismantling' of Barcelona by a manager? Was it 8 seasons later under Koeman? Barcelona was still winning La Liga regularly post-Pep and only had what could be considered an actual bad spell just before and during Ronald Koeman in 2020, and a lot of their problems since then can also be attributed to the fact that they've been severely financially mismanaged. I don't think anybody saw Barcelona 3 seasons later with Messi, Suarez and Neymar under Luis Enrique and thought 'this team has been ruined since Pep left!! '

In my Milan save in FM23, Ange Postecoglou took over from me when I decided I got bored of winning the domestic trophies repeatedly and left the club. He actually managed to win the Champions League with the team I created in his first season - something I couldn't do (got to the semis a few times) - after I took over a Marseille side with an average age of about 29 years old and had to absolutely gut and rebuild. The season after that CL win, he started selling Milan's best players and brought in a bunch of average utility players that could play multiple positions but weren't really any good at one of them. The worst thing was the fact that he sold Kylian Mbappe for like £50m to Real Madrid or something stupid like that, whom I brought in on a free transfer on a decent contract because he was a free agent for long enough that his wage demands finally fell to a realistic level. Anyway, I was appointed the Real Madrid manager a few seasons later after Ancelotti retired, and linked back up with Mbappe. Milan was just an average team by then with about three on my wonderkid newgens that stuck around.

Yeah, it's been reported in the bugs forum and it's being investigated.

What's weird to me is that the negotiating system that's in place for staff contracts is pretty good and straightforward. They open with what they want, and you can negotiate with them to lower their wage in most cases. Agents seem determined to talk their players out of higher wages and multiple years' worth of job security beyond their actual worth.

I'm playing as Universitario in Peru. The problem for me is that the agents are always misleading during the opening interactions before the actual negotiations begin. I noted this earlier in the thread a few pages back, but the agents also sometimes start adding in bonuses that don't make any sense if you attempt to negotiate a lower wage to find a middle ground, and they'll still demand the same opening wage anyway - or keep increasing the wage, as I had in this case when a player in my team wanted a new contract.

Ignacio Ramírez currently on £825 per week at Liverpool FC (Uruguay). Nearing end of contract and can be signed on a free transfer. Agent claims he'd like to play for us as an important member of the team, and is looking between £11.75k and £14.75k per week, which is an insane leap from what he's currently on. Just to check anyway, he begins negotiations at £16.75k. Really, really sick of this.

I don't really want the game to be harder/easier or anything, personally - at least in the way people keep discussing. I just want the game to make sense and show consistency. In terms of difficulty, that *should* come down to what club you select to manage, the circumstances the club is facing, and what the expectations of the board/supporters are imo.

They make very poor choices. It doesn't matter if they have 20 in every applicable attribute. I've tested it.

Has anybody experienced a 'late bloomer'? Like somebody in their late 20's/early 30's developing? That was one of the promoted features. I've just realized I haven't heard anybody mention that they have. How is it even supposed to work if the PA is fixed? Is it like the player can continue to grow their attributes (so long as there's available PA) way past the usual threshold?

This is so common for me and it's seriously painful.

tbf, most Steam reviews for games are filled with a bunch of people making the same copy-paste joke template comment, hoping to get votes on being the funniest comment. Mostly the general format of 'seemingly negative comment - subversive twist to positive outcome with the overall joke being the contradiction itself' or the other way around, and then fit it to the context of the game if you have to. Stuff like 'this game ruined my marriage and my kids won't speak to me anymore. I love it so much'. You just eventually become numb to them. I'm guessing the SI employees that have to read them tune these out too. At least Juan went to some effort.

Had a great interaction come from this. This guy is on £450 a week and is a Squad Player, and after discussing a potential contract with his agent, he wants between £1.5k and £1.8k per week. I think £1.5k is a hard limit at this level for somebody, so that's what I was aiming for (and we're over wage budget right now). During contract negotiations: -The Agent argues for £1.8k. I set it at £1.5k. -He demands £1.8k again. I set it again at £1.5k. -Agent tries for £2k. I set (and lock) for £1.5k. -Agent argues for a £2.4k contract if the player reaches 30 games (wtf???) and a per-international appearance fee of about £500 (for an average 31 year old that hasn't been capped by Uruguay once in his life?). Removed and excluded the 30 game clause. -Agent calls off the deal. This player's contract runs out in about 40 days at this point, and his agent just talked his replaceable 31 year old client out of a guaranteed 2 year contract making £1.1k more per week than he is right now. Some of the players in the team got upset because I didn't give him the contract he wanted, so I cheated and removed squad unhappiness because of how nonsensical squad unhappiness and team revolts are in this game. He's been relegated to the reserves to avoid further player squad unhappiness and placed on Set For Release. The player himself is eager to stay at the club. ngl, the two main things that'll grate on me and probably turn me back to FM23 is the general player interaction and how terrible the contract negotiations are in this. It isn't just specific to agents being bad at their job - players without agents are exactly the same way. Maybe I'm remembering things incorrectly, but I don't think FM23 was this bad with this stuff? Though one thing I noticed in FM23 in my Milan save was that youth academy players would argue for relatively high amounts of money (complete with the usual aggressive interactions) at 15 and 16 years old, and I'd just end up letting them go because they weren't going to amount to much anyway and I was like 'wow, f*** you' because of how the scripted interactions were written.

Here's an example of a normal (albeit blunt) interaction: 'I'm not happy with my current contract and would like to discuss a new one'. Here's what we get as a normal interaction instead from a player with unremarkable hidden attributes: The game can clearly tell I've just joined the club and the interaction makes a point of it, so what's with the unnecessary aggression? Why are almost all interactions like this? This isn't a bug, it's a design choice.

I'd argue you can't really tell if somebody has good shooting accuracy if they don't ever prove that they do, which is why I think it shouldn't even be shown in the game. That's what I'm getting at when I'm talking about the attributes and the numbers not being very helpful. I've personally started ignoring attributes more and more and looking mostly at player statistics and performance ratings, but it's very difficult and long-winded to play that way in the game with how stats are currently presented. It definitely makes a difference though.

It was confirmed in the Bugs Forum that the development team are happy with how Squad Building and rotation currently works, so there's no planned fix, unfortunately.

This is reformatted from a post I made in the Football Manager 2024 Official Feedback Thread (along with some mixed ideas others had in the same thread). It might be a little bit messy to read, but the ideas tie into one another: I think the idea of player attributes, as they exist now, should be reconsidered altogether. The number system is messy and kind of outdated imo. In general I feel like the 'attributes' should be more like observations by coaching staff/scouts (this is could also be a way to move the confusing star rating system along, since a lot of people seem to take that as gospel and not the opinion of staff). One big problem I've always had with the attributes in general is how they're kind of useless in terms of representation. If a player has 17 Finishing but isn't taking their chances, and is a poor goal scorer overall because of other factors such as Composure, Decisions, Technique etc. not being at adequate levels, then what good is it telling me they're a good finisher? They're clearly not since the other factors hinder it, so what is finishing really telling anybody, considering the bottlenecks? It might be a better idea to consolidate/remove some of the attribute listings and try to simplify things where possible, so we don't just have a mass of numbers. I think it'd be a great idea to use training to help show how the players are performing, since this is really how a lot of managers assess who makes it into the first team squad and how good players are at certain things (as well as the actual matches, obviously). I don't mean with training reports like 'so and so performed well in training' along a number, as it works now - I mean maybe seeing the actual training itself in the new match engine on a training field so we can see who's passing well, tackling well, taking set pieces well, shooting training, etc. during drills. For people that think it sounds tedious to watch the players train, you could probably just delegate this and get a basic report from the assistant manager or something, like 'Striker A's shot accuracy: ___%' and whatever else. I mean, some managers irl don't like being involved with training at all, so it's not unrealistic to just have your coaching staff do all the work and be labelled more as a man-manager or something. It'd be much more immersive to look at your players up close that way. Anyway, I'm sure it'd require *a lot* of work to make such an overhaul of the database and how the game functions, but I do genuinely feel like this series could benefit from redoing a lot of core things and keeping things as simple as possible from there.

Negotiated a contract with vice captain of the team and his agent demanded that he be made captain during negotiations. I removed it from the discussions altogether because I don't want him as captain (and I usually get rid of contract promises anyway). The player just signed the contract now, and he's been given the captaincy automatically anyway. Now the former captain is upset at being stripped of the captaincy. Huh? Can't give a saved game for it unfortunately.

Another problem I've always had with attributes is how they're kind of useless in terms of representation. If a player has 17 Finishing but isn't taking their chances and is a poor goal scorer overall because of other factors such as Composure, Decisions, Technique etc. not being at adequate levels, then what good is it telling me they're a good finisher? They're clearly not. I think the idea of removing numbered attributes as they exist is a great idea. Somebody already mentioned the Mustermann skin using a graphical representation, and I think that works, but I also think some of these attributes are useless in theory, even outside of the ME. Alongside some of the other suggestions, I think training should help show how the players are performing since this is really how a lot of managers assess who makes it into the first team squad. I don't mean with reports like 'so and so performed well in training' with a number as it works now - I mean maybe seeing the actual training itself in the new match engine on a training field so we can see who's passing well, tackling well, taking set pieces well, shooting training, etc. You could probably just delegate this and get a basic report from the assistant manager or something, if you feel like the idea of seeing your players training is tedious (I mean, some managers irl don't like being involved with training at all). It'd be much more immersive to look at your players up close that way. But anyway, something to think about.

Just so you know (and so you aren't needlessly waiting): it's been confirmed in a bug report thread that the development team are happy with how the AI transfer and squad building logic is working, so it's not something that's going to be fixed in any upcoming patches. There's not really anything that can be done.

This might interest some.

I never really understood how late bloomers were ever supposed to work when the Potential Ability of a player is a fixed number tbh. Unless what it really means is that players can develop to their full potential after the age of 26, just as they would when they were younger? I don't think it's ever really been explained.

Davincid's realism mod is great, but it's been noted before that it doesn't affect the AI directly. It adjusts everything that can be edited in the FM24 editor like player reputation, injury rates, and stamina/fatigue tweaks to force squad rotation. While that can help push younger players into being played in first team games just out of the AI manager's desperation to have a fit squad before a match, it won't do anything to fix the features SI promised in order to sell the game - specifically more considered transfers, and actual planned youth player development with loans.