Freakiie

So, the very things SI is working on every version already? Good, looks like SI doesn't have to do anything different then!

Well as per usual when this topic comes up; how do you implement difficulty in FM? How do you actually make it harder?

Not sure what makes the English database different, but in my experience any lower tier databases slowed down the game severely due to the sheer number of clubs that each additional tier adds at that level. You could try having a look at game detail settings are to see if the game is trying to simulate too many games using the full ME or something, but other than that I can't help you.

Amateur football is massive. Your custom DB has literally thousands of teams and is way bigger than a database with only the top competitions from a couple nations. So, while the player number is initially low because the game only has players for the first couple Dutch leagues, the amateur divisions that you are adding to the game have literally hundreds of teams, that then need to be populated and will be playing hundreds of matches every Saturday and Sunday. In reality it is a way bigger database than your FM23 one. Just think about it, most top leagues have 18 or 20 teams. The Dutch Amateur divisions you've added have hundreds of teams and you have multiple of these leagues.

Yes and that is the old version. Updated version is this.

If you're on 24.2 you got the major upgrade. The database doesn't get separate versions until after the winter transfer window.

Honestly, looking at AZs transfer history in my save it's no wonder they don't bother with training their own youth any more. 85m out 24/25, 151m out 25/26, 149m out 26/27... who cares about their own youth! Just buy wonder kids you sell for 5x the amount a year later. AI has been learning from us players. I heard some people talking about issues with activity on the transfer market, but looking at these AZ transfer histories, their AI is insanely active on the transfer market and raking in the cash at rates that far beat what their youth set up could produce for them. Part of it I think is that finances are just too easy, so Dutch clubs have a massive balance after they get in 1-2 good transfers in real life, they then throw that at new players that happily join even if in real life they almost certainly wouldn't move to the Netherlands. Then, with most of these clubs being financially stable and thus having 100% transfer revenue added to the budget (which they definitely don't have in real life, but in FM they do because in FM they're considered very healthy clubs financially), one big transfer translates into a massive transfer budget, which the AI then happily starts spending and before you know it the own youth just gets drowned out. Very similar to Ajax the last years to be honest, heavy spending to ensure quality in the squad, which made the barrier for their own talent to fight for positions in the first team much higher, in FM it just happens in an even more extreme way because clubs worry far less about finances.

For mistakes it should be the opposite to be honest. A punch is easier than attempting to catch the ball, so your goalie should be less likely to make a mistake, but the obvious downside is that the ball will fly loose after the punch and who knows where it ends up. If your goalie has good aerial reach and command of area a low tendency will most likely be preferable as he should have the ability to claim a lot of balls, but a goalie that's not great in that aspect you might want him to just punch the ball away because if he fumbles the catch that will almost certainly be a bigger issue.

Thanks for the test! Good to know it wasn't my memory abandoning me.

Training not affecting positional familiarity would be completely new to me and the complete opposite of what my memory tells me my experiences with FM have been over the years. It's nowhere near as effective as actually playing a player in a position, but I'm 99% certain I've trained players to have at least very basic positional familiarity in a new position before ever playing them in said position.

As long as hidden attributes can still be snuffed out by a scout in 2 weeks hiding more stuff doesn't really make a difference. It'd just add a couple more red flags to potentially pay attention to in the scout report.

Players don't need any familiarity, you can train a player as anything you want. Only thing you can't do is train an outfield player as a GK and vice versa. Depending on their versatility they can get pretty high positional familiarity from just training in a specific position, but match time in their new position is more efficient.

In real life higher leagues will generally require you to have at least a basic license, so I think this is what is blocking you from getting a job as from the looks of it you only have relatively high leagues selected. That your club will often refuse giving you any coaching certificates is absolutely ridiculous and honestly considering how much money you make we should just be able to to do it on our own dime (make salary useful for one single thing! ). There should be a feature that prevents you from getting completely locked out of getting a job though, so I guess for now your best bet is to just holiday indefinitely while automatically applying to every free job and hope something happens. If nothing happens I'd honestly file a bug report, because that'd mean the failsafe broke.

Meanwhile, in the category "player interactions are fun"; Hoffenheim comes in for my goalie during the winter. Now the Bundesliga is a mess and Hoffenheim are actually a subtop club in Germany, that qualified for the CL, so my goalie wants to leave to get a chance to play in the CL. Understandable. I then ask him what I could do to make him stay. His reaction? He will never win silverware at our club, so it's impossible to entice him to stay. While saying this, he is gleefully staring at his winners medal for the Danish Cup we won last season, but yeah, no silverware. Lets also ignore the part where we are in the semifinals this season and top of the league, but trust me, silverware won't happen. At Hoffenheim though? Just ignore the part where the only thing they ever won is a single Conference League, 13 years ago, but surely silverware is guaranteed there! So, obviously I promise him that we will win silverware at our club, he is happy and then you realize that's not an option in the conversation. Would make too much sense I guess? I also can't promise him that we will qualify for the CL, despite that being his original complaint. Nope, I have 2 promises regarding selling him to Hoffenheim, one option to tell him I'm buying epic players, which with my funds isn't happening or some spiel about amazing youth players coming through. He didn't buy that last one. But, he is now perfectly happy waiting for a transfer offer that's almost 4 times as high as the Hoffenheim offer, so I get the feeling he will be sticking around.

Not really my experience with my DoF this version. Since my team is broke I'm heavily relying on free transfers, which obviously leaves me with a rather limited pool and a lot of the free transfer suggestions my DoF gives me are players I already scouted. And a lot of Colombian players, despite neither him nor my club having any scouting knowledge in that region.

Most DoFs will have a bit of their own network, so them coming up with suggestions outside of your scouting network isn't that strange. They definitely should come with at least some scouting knowledge though.

Sounds like your database is causing issues, because that seems way too extreme. My save is the exact opposite with managers staying for incredibly long times, even if they don't perform that well. Montgomery was around until late 2028, Kettlewell his successor was there for 4 years, after that their next to managers only lasted a bit more than a year, but the board still looks far from trigger happy. De Zerbi also didn't get sacked in my save, he got poached by Juve after a while (although his career is lots of ups and downs and not all that successful). Looking at the SPFL, the only manager actually sacked in the first season was Kettlewell at Motherwell.

Maybe? Never paid much attention to it. You can just manually add and remove players if you want to.

Meanwhile in my save Nagelsmann has been back at Bayern for 9 years winning only a single DFB pokal in that period, currently is sitting 9th in the Bundesliga and his job security is still stable. Also without actually knowing what the situation in the PL looks like it's impossible to judge whether Arteta would never be fired for being 5th. Yes, the board has been patient with him so far, but I'm guessing that the FM expectations for this season would be the title with their performance last season and major investments made into the squad? Sure, it'd be ridiculous if he was simply 3 points behind like Aston Villa currently is, but if the gap is already bigger I wouldn't be surprised if the board starts asking some questions.

It's a list of who is next in line to the take the armband in case your Captain/Vice Captain are not on the pitch.

If it was a media article that said you would have a 120m budget I think it's just media sensation. If it was some internal memo, then I'd be a bit more inclined to consider it a bug, although new owners overhyping their own involvement is obviously nothing new either.

Step 1: Holiday Step 2: Actually start playing in 2041

Nope, new FM24 save, I skipped FM23.

Yeah the three times kinda was my point. And it shows the face of my manager, instead of the player that actually won the NXGN, that's why he has face paint. As to why he has face paint? The randomizer button does magical things!