busngabb

From what I've seen of it, recruitment focuses either work as expected, or don't work at all. I suspect there is a reason for that, such as the scouts or head scout are all engaged doing other things and never get to it, despite it being the highest priority. Or because the players it would find are not shown because the 'include players from other recruitment focuses' bit isn't ticked or isn't working. I always tick that now.

Why are they gamey restrictions? Managers don't have anywhere near the level of autonomy in real life. Poch isn't signing anyone for example, I doubt he even knows they're happening until Chelsea tell him. Of course we want the game to be fun so it can't go that far, but there should be a more realistic representation of how clubs approach transfers. Most clubs will have instructions from the manager as to what he feels is needed and what the priorities should be (Like FM already has with the squad planner and recruitment focuses). They might even be allowed to suggest targets, with suggestions alsocoming from owners, scouts, Directors of Football if they exist as well. But they aren't deciding themselves, submitting offers, then negotiating contracts. They're just either getting the targets they've wanted, or not. There will also be constant disagreements over targets, suggestions of better value or more available alternatives and push back over how much is spent etc. It should be more like this in the game. FM's squad building is just too open. You can change your entire squad for better players within two or three seasons easily and just overpower everything else the game has to offer. How many other games are there where you can basically do what you want and make it as easy as possible? Having a learning curve and difficulty level is a firmly established concept in gaming, it always has been.

I'd prefer some kind of restriction on it. I always succumb to signing players I know are wonderkids in every position. So after two or three years I've got an entirely new 11 and I'm winning the league every year and have a stockpile of amazing talent waiting to replace them. It should really be a case of 'Everton's transfer budget is £20m this season. You must sign a striker as we only have one. There are two loan spaces in the squad available and you must raise £10m in player sales". That is how an Everton transfer window is. Not 'Your budget is £30m, you can sell players to get more and we don't care who you sign or whether you pay upfront or add to the £984m of transfer debt we already have.' You shouldn't be able to sign anyone you haven't thoroughly scouted, at least until you are very established and respected by the board either. I could stop myself signing those players and sign average ones instead and finish 9th, but that's like when you let your kids beat you at sport. It kind of feels wrong. At clubs with an interfeering owner like Chelsea, it should be 'Hi Mr Manager, here's Billy, our £128m signing from RB Leipzig. You don't want him? That's fine, we don't care, just make sure he plays every week. Good lad.'.

Just by making it harder by default? So making a tactical mistake has more impact, so weaknesses in your tactics or players are more likely to cause you problems. I've no idea how the calculations behind FM work, but presumably there is some sort of calculation going on to see if things happen, just tweek them to make them favour the AI more. If they are set currently to be completely fair and based on the tactics and players and not favour the human player, then make the AI do more to try to beat you. I always start FM with my own tactics, fail to win anything but do well compared to real life and get frustrated. I moan about it on the tactics forums and people point out the glarring errors, I change those and instantly win titles. If there were such glarring, obvious errors, why was I doing well in the first place? I'm absolutely terrible at the tactics side of the game. I understand football, played it at a pretty good level. But I look at the FM match engine and I'm really struggling to pull any real information from it. Most of the goals I concede are balls from a marked central midfielder up to a marked forward who turns and leathers it into the goal. Or tap ins from second balls on set pieces and I have no idea what that means in the game. But I've started two careers on FM24 (Both as Everton), made my own tactics loosely based around how I'd like them to play and I was top after 23 games in one, but restarted after the update because Jarred Branthwaite had scored 20 and I figured set pieces might be permanently broken. I've started a new career and I'm second after 15 games, with only the loan signings of Ilaix Moriba, Fabien Rieder and Hamad Traore (None of whom play regularly). If someone as bad at the tactics side of the game as me can do that, I hate to think how easy those who really know what they're doing with the tactics are finding it.

Sounds a lot, but really isn't. The Classic would just be the core game with sections removed and their impact removed. The Hardcore mode is just the core game but with more realistic restrictions on squad building and ramped up sliders/impacts of doing things right/wrong tactically etc.

I've always wondered that. It's presumably some kind of calculation to work out which club is best or worst overall for that category. But it probably shouldn't be visible as it doesn't give you the score for your own club, so you can't compare it to anything.

That's fine if you're the kind of person who loved to play dress up and role play in your youth. FM shouldn't be a role playing game where you make up things in your head though. If a player is available to sign, you shouldn't have to worry about whether it's realistic or not. These kind of things should be linked to the reputation of the manager, the club, the competition etc. Transfer policy should be far more rigid, at least when a manager is new to a club, once they've been successful, perhaps they get more leeway. The number of signings, the cost, the amount of future fees and the positions should all be restricted. The game already provides this with the recruitment meetings. It should set you targets for players in and out and make you stick to them.

Commercially no. Covid no doubt helped significantly as people stayed at home and got bored and refound FM and Gamepass opened it up to a lot of new players too. But in terms of the development of the game and it's improvement arc, it had definitely stopped improving. You could compare a 7 or 8 year old version of the game to the current one and you would be hard pressed to find any material differences. If anything it got worse graphically every year until this year as well. This is what makes FM25's new engine and UI so brave and ambitious. They didn't have to do it, they could have cashed in for a few more years. But they've pushed to improve and I'm all for that.

[Sean Dyche screws his face up in utter disgust]

I think the removal of FM Classic/Touch or whatever it was called on PC was a mistake. There should definitely be an option to strip the game back to just transfers, matches, coaches and contracts as it's clearly what a lot of people want. There is some of that with the mobile version, but they wrapped that in the ridiculous Netflix subscription model so a lot won't play it. For me there should be three game modes. FM Classic (Features similar to early FM/late CM titles), FM Core (The default FM version that the majority of players use) and FM Hardcore (The core game, but with more realistic pressure on managers, more difficult squad building, less influence and power available to the manager and more tactical difficulty). As for FM25, I've said before the decision was brave and totally necessary. FM was a franchise in decline, each iteration was too similar to the previous one and the features being added were largely of low value. Having the new engine for games and the new UI is long overdue. It has needed this for probably 5 years now and it's so good to see them taking the risk like this. If anything, if they wanted to be more like FIFA, they could simply have kept the same engine, UI and graphics and just rolled out a yearly update with little to no effort like EA does. Whilst there are a lot of hardcore FM fans who'll claim the visuals aren't important, they are. A fresh, impressive new UI and engine will draw fans in from other titles, like FIFA, growing the game. It'll increase immersion as well, making the game feel that bit more real. Watching your generic players jerk around, teleport and move unrealistically also makes it harder to see what's going on. I'm awful at the game tactically and I think a lot of that is because the game currently just isn't good at making it obvious where you are succeeding or failing tactically because the animation and graphics are so bad.

I've seen a downturn in results. But not sure if it's the update that's done it. I won 9 in 9 at the start of the season as Everton with no signings and a very generic 4-2-3-1 high press, so was getting very concerned by the ridiculous ease of the game. So drawing at home to Sheffield United and getting hammered by West Ham and Chelsea away was almost a relief.

I've no idea how good Colchester are these days. Using default tactics and just letting the game play itself should result in roughly them achieving their expected outcome. If you're significantly over-achieving without even trying to do anything, that is a big problem. I'm not very good at the tactical side of the game at all and usually struggle first season, get frustrated and download a tactic and eventually the weight of improvement in the players overpowers the tactics and I end up being successful. You do have to self-impose realism on the transfers and squad building or it does get too easy.

This thread and the inverse one quoted above where someone is struggling happen every year with every release. I generally wait until the New Year for the update for everything to settle down. But the threads are vital in my opinion. I just cannot see how Football Manager can continue to exist without difficulty levels. For experienced players who can understand the match engine, the game is far, far too easy. Even for inexperienced players, download a tactic from the internet and you can win the league most years, if not all. The real issue at the core of this is the transfer market and the power the manager has in the game. You have limitless power to do whatever you want in the game. Sack the entire staff and hire 5* staff (Relative to the club's level) across the board? Okay. Abuse future payments to spread your £30m budget into a £120 million one? Fine. Write off the impact of that debt by just making sure your club is bought out? Fine. Most players start the game and make a raft of signings, of players they know or suspect will be future wonderkids. I've seen people posting "the game is too easy, I'm second with Everton in the second season. I bought Zaire-Emery, Endrick, Nusa, Scalvini, Colwill, Barco, Fresneda, Schjelderup, Roque and Leonardo". And you can do stuff like that. In reality, none of those players are signing for clubs outside the Champions League unless there is a compelling reason, i.e Brighton picking up the odd wonderkid due to their reputation as a stepping stone club. Not only would the players not join the club, the club itself would never sanction such risky expenditure from a rookie manager. Even as a club like Man City, they might let you sign one or two of those kind of players, but not 6/7/8/9 over 12 months etc. There would be so much more difficulty getting those deals sanctioned. First season as manager, sign 8 wonderkids, all in future fees? No problem in the game. To make the game more realistic for experienced players, transfers should be made more realistic. I.e elite level transfers are almost impossible to complete without 6 months to a year of negotiations behind the scenes. A high number of signings should also not be permitted. The transfer strategy should be defined when the manager is hired and kept to, i.e 'The club feels it needs two signings to compete, a midfielder and a young striker with potential'. You should then not be allowed to go and sign 4 wonderkid fullbacks as it's just ridiculously unrealistic and easy to achieve. Alternatively, unless you've done very well at a club, most of the transfer strategy and actual targeting of players should be done by the club and imposed on you. No way the Chelsea manager is choosing his own signings for example. That would also ramp up the difficulty and realism several notches.

Who are you playing as?

Down with the 0's.

The squad planner should be integrated into your transfer strategy/targets. You should lay out your squad and positions you need to fill and it should be agreed at the start of the season or window and should you should have to stick to it, with deviation from it only allowed for highly respected managers or via a board request or board suggestion if a good deal comes up unexpectedly. I.e you set your squad planner and include a loan goalkeeper as cover and a first team striker using your transfer budget. If you have a DoF, they should then go and get recommendations for those players and you can throw your own suggestions in. Once the targets are agreed they should then go and negotiate them. There is no way in hell managers are ringing or emailing clubs to put bids in for players, let alone having free rein to go and sign 7 unknown wonderkids on 5 year contracts, doing the negotiations themselves. This idea can also include the youth squads as well. I find that most of the time my teams under 21s have a decent amount of players, but the Under 18s only have about 7 players, because the half decent ones end up getting promoted to the U21s, but only about five a season get signed on through the youth intake as they are always terrible no matter how good the youth setup is. You should be able to include in the transfer strategy the signing X amount of players with high potential for the U18s for example, but at the moment you can't. At the moment you have to either sign them youself, or wait for the DoF to do it, but they only sign about one every four months and never fill the youth squads up. Managers in real life might have some involvement in this kind of thing, but Pep isn't going out and identifying and negotiating deals for all the players that come into City's youth system from abroad. This would also allow owners like Fahrad Moshiri to influence the game. I.e the owners can come to your with suggested targets, based on agents they know recommending them to them. I.e Kia Joorabchian and Moshiri at Everton. It would also give the possibility of the board being unable to sign the players you want to sign and the manager then has the choice to blame the club/board (Which eases the pressure with the fans, but worsens the relationship with the board) or keep quiet (And increase the board relationship but come under pressure from the fans). In real life there are constant news stories about how clubs have failed their managers by failing to get the players he wants (Again, example Everton in the last three windows or Manchester United). This would aid with making personality of clubs more alive in the game. I.e go to Spurs in the game and you can sign whoever you want for whatever you want under the budget. In real life a Spurs manager is spending three days a week for four years begging Levy to make signings. You'd be considering quitting clubs as they don't match your ambition or issuing ultimatums to owners that they need to get your targets in the next transfer window or you'll move on. It would also keep squad building realistic, so you can no longer replace the existing team entirely within 18 months with wonderkids like a lot of FM players do.

The amount of time it takes for shouts to actually happen. They should just happen instantly, not wait for the next stoppage in play. Their effectiveness should rest on how close the players are to the technical area. And you should be able to spam them if you want to (Although obviously that would reduce their effectiveness and cause confusion if any of them were conflicting).

I had similar with a kid I'd brought through from the academy. He had barely played and wasn't that good, but scored twice in the FA Cup final. I praised his performance after the game thinking he'd be made up. But he had a complete rant about it, I forget the wording but it was basically hinting at me having low standards. Like you, that kid will never see daylight, let alone a football pitch again in his career.

I often start a match and find myself getting distracted by things around me and coming back to the game to find it's half time or fulltime. I'd love to be able to click a button and have the game pause at a certain point, i.e 15 minutes, 30 minutes etc. Or contextually, so it pauses whenever there is a goal or whenever a player's physical condition reaches a certain point, or when the AI changes formation.

THIS. It's a massive stretch already to think the game doesn't just provide the outcome it wants to. Giving AI the ability to learn how to be successful by data mining ME exploits would likely mean you find the game horrendously difficult or horiffically annoying to play. If the AI learned your tactics and how other managers beat them, it'd be so frustrating to play. As you say, where AI might be useful in the game might be to have it simulate trends in the game. For example tiki-taka under Pep, this daft tactic of moving a fullback who can't defend into midfield (So he's less to blame when you concede on the break because he simply can't defend, Klopp, that's all it's for, I see you) etc. Having one up front instead of two is another one. The AI should perhaps migrate towards things the successful managers in the save are doing. Not copy them directly, but be influenced by them. So, for example if the player is the most successful manager and uses a bizarre asymmetrical formation with no strikers, you might see more and more AI teams using strikerless formations or asymmetry. They could even then have AI generated media articles about this development in modern football, with quotes from Neil Warnock saying it's trash.

Something manufactured after 1998 would be my guess. If you were okay for 23, you're fine for 24.

It does a very similar thing to my capacity to function.

I'm close to doing so. Love FM, but 23 has some majorly annoying bits. Currently being terrored by players who claim they aren't happy with their gametime, who the physios tell me are dying of fatigue and need a rest. Which one is it?

No, it genuinely is. You can almost guarantee goals against youself by choosing certain options and there are scenarios where all the responses give a negative outcome. It's very broken, one element of the game that is complete and utter trash. It's the kind of thing that happens once or twice a season to a team, where either they or the opposition come out firing and change the game around. In FM, it's almost guaranteed that 45-50 minutes is intense pressure at the very least and depending on the scenario, the AI scoring. It's on the list with the number of disallowed VAR goals for offside (14 in the first 6 games of my season) and penalties (0 from 6 this season, and not sure I've ever won a shootout on FM23) as the most annoying things about the game.

Have they changed the half time team talks in FM24? They are so broken it's unreal. There is nothing you can say that isn't self harming to some degree. 1-0 up to Milan in the Champions League and dominating, but repeatedly given the ball away in the last 5 of the first half giving them chances. So I say 'don't be complacent' assertively which triggers the inevitable goal for Milan in 45-50 minutes. It's absolutely ridiculous that saying something sensible costs you a goal and it does, it's directly responsible for it. If you are winning at half time, you can't maintain a good performance, at best you can flatline it and still win.