dannyfc

Just to confirm - is there a way to revert to the previous version on Steam? Thanks

Biased against who? You realise it's a Benfica fan who will be setting the attributes and abilities for Ramos?

Yeah really good point - less is more when it comes so simulating human behaviors. Best to keep it as generic as possible and leave the rest to our imagination.

Mate you've got Endrick playing for you lol

I know it's not the ideal solution but I opt for the saved game editor in these instances. Promises just aren't nuanced enough to not become a headache, so I just remove the unhappiness if I feel it's unwarranted and carry on with my save.

Out of interest, what's his level of influence in the Dynamics screen?

I understand your train of thought, but by that logic - anticipation and positioning would have no material benefit and you'd be better of opting for players with lower values with the CA spent elsewhere. On the contrary, I find both anticipation and positioning almost the highest performance indicator. Maybe since theyre coded in the manner you alluded to, but it ensures the players is more likely to be first to the ball which is crucial. Decisions I'm still undecided on as it's much more nebulous. My current best player has high decision making for that level, but unsure whether that's just coincidental.

Off-topic and I actually agree with the sentiment, but just to note Crouch actually has the highest number of headed goals in PL history. I only know this as I made the same point about him being poor in the air despite his height before someone else corrected me!

I think it's a natural consequence of trying to maintain a 'balanced' match engine. Definitely agree individual attributes felt more pronounced in the older games, but they also had glaring exploits or styles of play that were completely dominant. Very often all you needed to be successful was to feed a pacey striker through ball after through ball, there wasn't any real tactical depth to it. FM 13 was where it started to shift away from individuality to more of a team game. Suddenly less space available to exploit or players to dance through, so you need to maneuver the team as a whole to get result. Overall it made the game a lot more tactical , challenging, and tbf realistic, but unfortunately it also lost much of the magic moments of individual brilliance. If there was one underlying aspect of the current ME that I don't enjoy it's the aversion to congested areas. Players will completely lock up if faced with physical opposition, and rather than take-on or try to play through, too often they'll just turn around and opt for the safe ball back. Maybe that is the best option the majority of the time, but flair players should absolutely attempt risk-taking actions to try and break a deadlock.

Tactics can only take you so far really, and the long term objective should always be to improve upon the players in your system as that's how you sustain upward progress. Fortunately in LLM, even the smaller clubs can land better players than those with larger budgets through effective scouting and player development. That's not to say you can't exceed media expectations. Being an underdog can actually make things easier, as the impetus is on your opponent to make the break. By simply focusing on being defensively solid and patient, very often the opposition will over extend to force a goal and making gaps in their shape that can be exploited on the break. Even if those opportunities don't materialise, at the very least you can come away with a point. Over time as you add improvements to your squad, you can then start to become more expansive against weaker opposition. But yeah stability and slow progression is the foundation. Ironically just had rude awakening in my current save after becoming over ambitious. We're 2nd in the table from mostly grinding 1-0s with a 4-1-4-1 counter, and were up against bottom of the league away from home. Given we'd just beaten two playoff contenders leading up to it, I decided to take the game to them and attack from the off. Despite making good opportunities early on, they punished us on the counter and were 4-0 by HT. I reverted to a more stable approach after the interval and managed to bring it back to 4-3 but it was too late. Lesson here was I didn't need to throw men forwards to get the goals, but in doing so gave my opponents enough clear opportunities to kill me early on.

Don't have time to reply in detail to cover all your questions, but generally my advice for LLM: Keep it simple- don't over complicate Very easy to fall into the trap of constantly tweaking a system toward a very specialized style of play your team isnt good enough to execute. Particularly if it's reliant on specialized individual roles, e.g. playmaker or complete wing back. Your players wont be at a level that can perform them consistently, and your entire game plan can grind to a halt if theyre having an off day. Instead, looking to capitalise on opposition mistakes is much easier and puts less reliance on individual brilliance. For this reason, simple tactics with uncomplicated routes to goal will take you far. Going direct gives more opportunities for your opponents to make mistakes, and less opportunities for your players to ruin a build up. This is percentage football. Give your players generic roles (FBs, BWMs, CMs, DMs, Wingers, TFs, PFs) and ideally in close supporting pairs so there's always options available. A direct, wide 4-4-2 is usually a staple at this level for those reasons. Or a 4-1-4-1 for when you want to be more midfield stability, especially away from home. 5-3-2 and hitting two high pressing with deep wingbacks also works.

I've found the "Drop off" defensive instruction effectively resolves the ball over the top prevalence, but it is quite limiting tactically. Still feel passes are too accurate, especially in lower leagues. Completion rates are down from last year, but only since players have a tendency to send it long regarding of passing options. For example my conference team successfully utilises the "Play out of the defence" instruction, despite low composure and technical ability. I can't remember a single instance of being punished by a stray pass or miscontrol. Even Arsenal struggled to implement it when Arteta first arrived, so a tier 5 team shouldn't be doing it with relative ease. In tier 5 mistakes should be even more prevalent, a compromise increased ball retention and providing a difficult tactical decision on the risk vs benefit. The ME is still relatively good in my eyes, but would like to see player attributes and Team Cohesion have more of a visual impact on what happens on the pitch. Right now, better players perform better, but there isn't a noticeable difference in how the game plays between the highest and lowest levels.

I've found in the initial loan negotiations the parent club is usually willing to forgo the obligation to play a specific role if you request it. They usually add another 5% to the wage contribution to counter balance, but I prefer that for peace of mind and more tactical flexibility. I understand the logic for having it in but honestly it doesn't add anything to the game beyond being an annoyance. Would be better off just simplifying loan happiness based on playing time. I could be wrong but I don't think the in-game role choice impacts the players development anyway so feels a bit redundant.

Have you had much luck with headed goals? I'm about halfway through my first season - and haven't seen many from either my team or the opposition. However, I don't really have any great targets to aim at though so I'd be interested to know if it's a viable option with the right players.

Yeah honestly I've always found it too easy if anything. Never paid attention to personalities or bringing in players who were the 'right fit', but by using the Team Bonding schedule it's relatively easy to accumulate good cohesion very quickly. It's one of the features in recent years which I think is a great addition to incentivise realistic squad building rather than an XI of wonderkids - but it's perhaps a bit too forgiving imo. I would quite like to see influential players have more of an impact, for instance maybe you should only be able to attain the higher levels if you have enough players with high leadership or good personality mixes. I tend to disregard the scout reports that mention players potentially being a peripheral figure, so would good to see more consequences from ignoring that.

Appreciate the detail on this - alleviates my concerns about progressing with my game. Have no issue dealing with financial constraints as tbh will actually make the save more interesting, just wanted to be sure it's working as intended rather than just a miscalculation. It does feel more pronounced than the last time I played in FM 21, where I would usually incur a loss at that level but at a much slower rate. Also - I've actually been to the The Hive to watch the EUROs final on a big screen. Tickets were £40 or something daft so have somewhat contributed to your 2022 wage budget

Yeah completely sorted now, it was enough for me to stop playing the game entirely last year as seemed absurd.

Fully agree- very relieved to see <70% pass completions. Big improvement from last year where you'd have clogger CBs rack up 90%+ at ease.

Thanks for the context, out of interest what's their annual revenue? Maybe what's missing from FM is the intervention from the Chairman in that case to keep clubs solvent. Bromley started with a £200k balance at the beginning of the game so presumably they're also being propped up by a backer. My concern is at that level of sustained losses, without the external backing to plug the accumulative losses by a few seasons in the transfer activity will grind to a halt.

It's the ability to bring the ball under control, so not related to any actions that move the ball away from the player.

Same for me - midsize club in Conference National, lowest wages in the league, yet losing £500k per annum. I know most clubs aren't profitable at this level but seems excessive, or at the very least much more pronounced then previous games.

Can someone confirm if this a bug or feature? In contract negotiations for new signings, I'm unable to progress to the salary screen if I select the 'Star Player' role without any additional promises. In the screenshot below, you can see with no promises the button to progress is greyed out. If I stack an additional promise, e.g. takes freekicks, the button becomes available to suggest. If I select a less important role, e.g. Squad Player, the button becomes available to suggest even without an additional promise. There are no other salary constraints or excessive number of Star Players which would inhibit this.

But people who play Rimworld who are football fans will probably like Football Manager. Obviously FIFA is dominant, probably across all demographics, but FM still holds interest for football simulation fans regardless of age. Like I said earlier, young people aren't idiots. There's plenty of interest for non mainstream games in those ages, let alone FM which regularly tops the sales charts. Its naive to think only older adults play it.

We still had FIFA and PES growing up, it's all relative as at the time the graphic was perceived as ultra realistic. You guys are doing the younger generation a disservice I reckon, the exact same things would have been said 10/20/30/40 years ago. There will definitely be young lads who enjoy statistics and pouring over every detail in a football database. It's more of a personality than an age thing.

It won't have mass appeal but there will definitely be lads that age interested. My first was CM 00/01 aged 10. Me and my mate were addicted, we used to go down the park and act out the highlights of the players we signed.