sthptngomad76

I suspect they’ll be standalone, just as in the same way you add or exclude, say, the Turkish or Portuguese league

Love these. Share your squad!

Great summary. Has anyone played long enough with daveincd’s realism mod to see what effect that has?

I actually went back to 20 recently in an effort to find something different to what I’m experiencing with 24, and it’s exactly the same- can finish top two with a team predicted to be in the relegation places, with the same strategy. FM 15 I agree with though.

Although all games are exploitable in some way, I’d feel there was a marked shift in easiness from FM 20, when the current OP metas became dominant. Of course you could make it harder artificially (sign only welsh players starting with the letter Y or whatever) but for me, that was the turning point. Obviously difficulty is quite subjective- if I picked up the game now with no prior experience, and i don’t look at YouTube and other social media I may find it impossible- I might (quite logically) choose to play a counterattacking slow build up style with Luton, when I fact this isn’t favoured by the engine. But I’ve been playing these types of games for decades and read these forums, so I’m exposed to the hive mind of thought on here.

A lot of chat about the patch "fixing" OP gegenpressing. As much as I pray I'm wrong, I have an inkling that SI themselves don't know how to fix it, and we'll be left with a game very similar to what we have right now come March. Counterpress, high defensive lines, aggressive tackling (& it being very successful with teams that really won't be able to pull it off IRL) has been the plug and play meta since at least FM 20- SI themselves have made noises about making it a thing of the past in 22, and yet here we are again. I have no experience in coding, but is it possible that code can become so complex over many iterations that even developers may not how to correct it? Question more so for those in the know of software development.

Fm 18 is notoriously difficult to get hold of from my experience. To be fair that one had its own issues. I’ve had success finding older versions like 16 on ebay personally

I really liked a comment someone made a few months back commenting on this very issue- football manager has become a “Potemkin village”. There’s a lot of tools to make you feel like you’re doing deep analysis, but in reality you need very few if any to succeed.

I really miss the days early on prior to release, where we had clear information and expectations from SI as to the shortcomings of the past editions, and what we should expect in the future (aka Miles’ apology). Now that we have this most complete version ever, it seems to have dried up again.

That’s even more concerning for this version you achieved it without a high press system to be honest.

I know it’s a rough test, but I did something similar with the Latvian league when I tested the efficacy of gegenpress tactics vs others a while back. Selected Super Nova (a low ranked side) set a high pressing tactic, let in go on holiday indefinitely with instructions to play with that tactic. Came back, multiple league titles and UCL qualification- compared to non counter press strategy where that didn’t happen. Bizarrely you don’t need to even play in some cases to achieve this. I realise there are limitations, but it’s certainly something wouldn’t have happened in versions I played 10 years ago. As a comparison I did the similar thing in FM16 which I had installed, and of course when I returned from holiday I’d been eventually sacked (as you’d might expect from leaving everything to your Assistant other than setting a tactic)

Wasn’t more competitive transfer dealings from the AI/youth development meant to be a headline feature of this edition? It’s one of the reasons I bought the game

This

Very interested in your mod Daveincd, great work. Have you got any data which compares use of high intensity tactics in “vanilla” game versus that your mods? For example, on injury rates?

Is FM a sandbox game now? Rather than a strategy game?

Agreed. SI are surely aware of this- they have acknowledged in previous editions of attempting to make gegenpress a “thing of the past” however that clearly hasn’t happened yet. Which makes me think they either know about it and are happy to just leave it there, or, more likely, doing something about it will unbalance a very complex game, which potentially (and at least hopefully) can be fixed in the new engine.

Agreed, there's a lot currently in the game that could be progressed- think we've been stuck in holding pattern for some time. I usually send my assistant to them.

How does the AI feel in general? Making substitutions/reacting to your in-game strategy/team selection?

Agree 100%. Excellent post

I’m going to predict you’ll finish top 5-7, again with minimal signings. Let us know how you go!

I’m actually relatively new to his work, seems to be getting a lot of mentions lately. From the 23 edition having read through the features, does it actually change the gameplay/the way the AI managers behave? Or is it simply a data update? Or both?

“FM classic” mode which shipped with FM 13-14 was wonderful as a simpler version, for those who wanted the previous CM-style experience

I REALLY miss a good relegation battle. One of my fondest early memories from the CM days was scraping through on the last day. A few seasons after we went up- it felt so much more that I’d earned it. I feel I’ve been chasing that same sense of accomplishment ever since, without artificially construing one by handicapping myself. I almost hope to lose sometimes to bring back that feeling…

It was meant to be fixed way back in FM22. If I recall there was even a developer video segment on it.

It’s definitely not the most elegant option- but I’d rather the option to have a (user selected) “hard mode” AI that cheats, but creates an engaging challenging game that keeps me coming back, rather than the current situation where play for a half season and get bored, or have to artificially self-impose tactic selection/transfers, as is often suggested when this gets brought up. The ideal of course for me is an AI that is clever enough without this (which I hoped would be this version), but based on SI’s current efforts this isn’t likely in the foreseeable future, unless FM25 finally does it. I’m not holding my breath though.