Having played this series for 28 years I'm obviously a big fan and pretty forgiving when it comes to bugs and annoyances, as long as there's some way around them. But I'm shocked and baffled at how broken this game is. Considering that this is a game with only a minor update/polish every year, it's hard to understand how things can have gone so south since the last edition I purchased, FM22. I'm glad I got FM24 through Game Pass and didn't spend extra money on it.
There's too much broken to list and I've already given up, but a special game-breaker mention has to go to players in two teams at the same time: I've got multiple loaned-in first XI players still covertly playing for their original team's youth academy. On my game days, the days before, whenever, all the time, in another country, so that they're mostly tired, injured, or unavailable for me. Covertly, as in the only way to confirm this is to go to player profile -> form -> click on team selection -> see the other academy there. There goes half the salary budget, the save, and my desire to play.
Another thing I have to mention is the disastrous overall design choice of giving everyone a nonsensical opinion about everything and making it central to gameplay and success to appease those morons. Players revolting because of lack of depth for positions that are actually the strongest by far in a cash-strapped team struggling to field a competitive line-up at all after a miracle promotion. Or making group ultimatums after a single case of negative post-match feedback, while team atmosphere is good or better overall and the players respect the manager. Backup players revolting for "playing in a weak position" after having to play 200 minutes in their 2nd-best position during an injury crisis. Constant complaints about pretty normal amounts of physical training. Everyone whining about everything despite the aforementioned miracle promotion and players in fact playing at a higher level for the first time in their careers. Players with less playing time than agreed on and looking for an opportunity then playing poorly when they do get some playing time in an important cup match because they "would've preferred to stay on the bench" ... what the actual hell?!
Who's the manager here? Why this new hyperfocus on thoughts and feelings when the engine clearly cannot model them at all? Since when do random, unimportant youth prospects destroy the morale of entire senior teams because they don't understand the tactics or are lazy? It seems to me that the only way to get around this mess would be to remove the human manager entirely and just watch the AI do everything in the most obvious way imaginable, because any deviation from the norm, any actual choice, brief experiment or creative solution instantly leads to player unhappiness which then spreads and persists for months.
The lure of the game for me, at least after mastering it, used to be "what if..." and finding creative solutions to challenges, but now it's a game of just mindlessly clicking buttons to try to reach and maintain the only acceptable way to play in the AI's opinion. Gee, what fun.
The staff suggestions and opinions are even worse, although they can of course be ignored. If I'd follow the training suggestions, each player would be in a perpetual weekly on-off cycle of individual training, and of course deeply unhappy. And when a team has a 300k salary budget p/a, spending 400k p/a on intensive language courses to teach multiple players the second most commonly spoken language in the team is not sound advice. And how does a poor part-timer team even pay 40k EUR for a single language course? Does the course include neural pathway surgery?
Rant over. **** happens, I guess. Looking forward to coming back to the series after the promised complete reboot next year.
Having played this series for 28 years I'm obviously a big fan and pretty forgiving when it comes to bugs and annoyances, as long as there's some way around them. But I'm shocked and baffled at how broken this game is. Considering that this is a game with only a minor update/polish every year, it's hard to understand how things can have gone so south since the last edition I purchased, FM22. I'm glad I got FM24 through Game Pass and didn't spend extra money on it. There's too much broken to list and I've already given up, but a special game-breaker mention has to go to players in two teams at the same time: I've got multiple loaned-in first XI players still covertly playing for their original team's youth academy. On my game days, the days before, whenever, all the time, in another country, so that they're mostly tired, injured, or unavailable for me. Covertly, as in the only way to confirm this is to go to player profile -> form -> click on team selection -> see the other academy there. There goes half the salary budget, the save, and my desire to play. Another thing I have to mention is the disastrous overall design choice of giving everyone a nonsensical opinion about everything and making it central to gameplay and success to appease those morons. Players revolting because of lack of depth for positions that are actually the strongest by far in a cash-strapped team struggling to field a competitive line-up at all after a miracle promotion. Or making group ultimatums after a single case of negative post-match feedback, while team atmosphere is good or better overall and the players respect the manager. Backup players revolting for "playing in a weak position" after having to play 200 minutes in their 2nd-best position during an injury crisis. Constant complaints about pretty normal amounts of physical training. Everyone whining about everything despite the aforementioned miracle promotion and players in fact playing at a higher level for the first time in their careers. Players with less playing time than agreed on and looking for an opportunity then playing poorly when they do get some playing time in an important cup match because they "would've preferred to stay on the bench" ... what the actual hell?! Who's the manager here? Why this new hyperfocus on thoughts and feelings when the engine clearly cannot model them at all? Since when do random, unimportant youth prospects destroy the morale of entire senior teams because they don't understand the tactics or are lazy? It seems to me that the only way to get around this mess would be to remove the human manager entirely and just watch the AI do everything in the most obvious way imaginable, because any deviation from the norm, any actual choice, brief experiment or creative solution instantly leads to player unhappiness which then spreads and persists for months. The lure of the game for me, at least after mastering it, used to be "what if..." and finding creative solutions to challenges, but now it's a game of just mindlessly clicking buttons to try to reach and maintain the only acceptable way to play in the AI's opinion. Gee, what fun. The staff suggestions and opinions are even worse, although they can of course be ignored. If I'd follow the training suggestions, each player would be in a perpetual weekly on-off cycle of individual training, and of course deeply unhappy. And when a team has a 300k salary budget p/a, spending 400k p/a on intensive language courses to teach multiple players the second most commonly spoken language in the team is not sound advice. And how does a poor part-timer team even pay 40k EUR for a single language course? Does the course include neural pathway surgery? Rant over. **** happens, I guess. Looking forward to coming back to the series after the promised complete reboot next year.