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*Official* Football Manager 2013 Constructive non-ME Feedback Thread


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I havent really noticed the same in 3 seasons in the SPL Herbert, im playing as the dons. So far Celtic have made a couple of strange choices, they re-signed Danny Fox and a centre back im not so sure off, but signed a striker from Cardiff who is ripping the league apart, whilst not playing Scott Brown or Kelvin Wilson, but the rest of the SPL have strengthened quite well from what i can see, United spent £1m taking Law from Motherwell, a really good signing, i fought off Motherwell and Hearts for Paul McGowen, a great player for any SPL side bar Celtic. I've found the SPL quite hard this time around, there is nothing both in quality and finances separating most of the teams, the league is actually quite interesting to play.

Saying that tho its not long enough to really see how they get on, i guess they wont have improved the AI a huge deal, not until they re-write a large part of the game.

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Alright I'll try and give a short overview on my thoughts on the game excluding any me talk.

User Interface

While I didn't have much of a problem finding my way around new navigation I felt a few things where rather badly done. For example the Overview screen for team and player stats is just a complete mess and perfect example of how less is sometimes more. Don't get me wrong I love statistics and I would love if the game had even more of them but it's more of a design issue with this page then anything else.

Why do their have to be 19 items on the overview page an most of them in such tiny boxes that it's hard to actually gather any useful information from it. I would prefer it if the overview screen had between 4-6 items it which you could chose for yourself and if you wanted more detailed information there should be tabs to chose from and then have the possibility to get into the more detailed statistics.

SI should take a look at the website whoscored.com and see how they organize team and player statistics and which of these stats are relevant, they do it in one of the clearest way I have seen stats presented anywhere. Tabs and sortable columns would offer a really nice setup for statistics I feel and the technology is already in the game from searching players oh yeah and if possible it would be nice if the view on the "summery" or "overview" screen would be just as customizable as the information about players.

Media Interaction

Well this is still the least fun part for me in the game. Press conferences are just an unnecessary time sink to me and I still hope we'll get the chance to turn them off even in the full game. I even would send my assistant if I would trust him to not **** things up but I don't. I just feel that simulating press conferences is just way too much of a complex thing to ever be done in a halfway realistic manner without. At it's current state it's just an annoyance more then anything else.

But I get that making press conferences being a meaningful tool in the game that isn't turning into it's own mini-game is a hard task to accomplish, I just hope you'll think about giving the option to turn them off in the near future.

Player Interaction

I feel this area has improved a fair bit and it seems that you'll have more often then not the right topic to talk about.

Non the less I feel some things are still confusing like for example if you want to compliment a MC on his great defensive performance in the last game where he made 10 successful tacklings and interceptions but all you get to talk about is that his passing was great or his finishing. I know that those are just different levels of complimenting your player on his performance and the passing or finishing prefix is actually not that important but it still feels a bit one dimensional and lackluster.

There is another area I feel that could need improving and that's feedback on a player motivation. Every FM game I'm playing I seem to have at least one player who always seems to drop in moral no matter how good my team is doing and how well he is playing, I can compliment him through talking to him and that will sometimes "fix" his moral for a short period of time but then he'll be back to sulking and being poorly motivated. The problem is that it's almost impossible to tell why because his information page is telling me that he is happy at the club and optimistic about his future and all that stuff that indicates that he is one happy customer. Yet moral is bad and constantly dropping shortly after having gained a bit.

Staff AI

I still feel that a large amount of the advice given by your staff is rather useless.

Of course it can help you sometimes when a coach points out a specific weak point of your player but then again I'm missing the option to tell my assistant what my plan in the development of the player is. Let's say I have a talented youngster which I feel could do great as a ball winning midfielder because he has the right mental attributes but is still lacking in areas like tackling and strength. This leads to my assistants feeling the player would be more apt to play a DLP but I don't employ this role in my tactics and have no plan of using one of these players in the near future, yet my assistant will keep telling my that I need to improve his passing instead of his tackling and marking.

It would be nice if we could set an intended role and position for a player and then my assistant could tell me which attributes he would focus on depending on the role I chose for the player.

Opponent AI

This is where I feel the game has probably made some of the biggest improvements. I really can't remember having seen any FM so far where the opposition employed so many tactical changes during a single game to counter my changes, which might actually be the single biggest reason why players are struggling with a single tactic and mentality approach.

It's still a bit early for me to say something about the squad building abilities of the opponent AI but I have seen more good transfers in my 3 season FMC beta game then I have seen happening over my 14 season FM12 save game, so if the AI manages to get the transition right from original players to newgen players it could actually mean that AI teams might remain more competitive in the long term.

Communication

Communicating with FM has always been a bit of a problem for me and FM13 hasn't changed that too much.

May it be that I don't always know what to do with the tactical advice given during games by your assistant, the opposition scouting report or my players moral. I often find myself at a loss to what actually to do with the incredible amount of information provided by the game and that after reading all the great posts by people here on the tactic forums. Reading through the posts in this thread I also feel that lots of frustration comes from the fact that it's often hard to tell where you are doing wrong.

What I would love to see is probably a pre-match meeting with your staff, in which they will give tactical advice and feedback on player form and which opponents to keep a close eye on during matches. I know that for players like wwfan, Cleon, Lam and FuriousUK reading the provided data correctly and translating that into their tactical setup is probably second nature but on everyone of these players comes someone like me who has rather a hard time translating the information he just got into a meaningful tactical approach. In short something like the backroom meeting available before every game where your backroom staff helps you to make sense of all that data available before matches and give you advice on the tactical setup, OIs and all that stuff you can use to influence the way your team plays.

As I feel this is getting a bit long I'll stop here for now even though there are probably still some topics one could talk about but if I'll probably do that in another post.

Quality feedback.. I wish the last 30 pages gone were as constructive.

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Until the AI actually becomes sentient SI would need to hire a million or so people to write enough code for the AI to appear to be acting logically and spontaneously, the current short cut methods are ugly and illogical at times but they do just about keep the game in balance.

Yeh I agree the admittedly less than genius AI is far from terrible, useless or 'game-breaking!'. It has left me a bit bored of my annual Saints file, as I (as always) am finding it too easy, but it is only one league. Thankfully SI included plenty of others that will offer a different challenge!

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Yeh I agree the admittedly less than genius AI is far from terrible, useless or 'game-breaking!'. It has left me a bit bored of my annual Saints file, as I (as always) am finding it too easy, but it is only one league. Thankfully SI included plenty of others that will offer a different challenge!

Is Murry Davidson a hero outside the box for you?! That guy hits 30 yarders into my top corner every bloody time i play the saints! Its infuriating!! hahaha

I find for some reason i just cannot beat Caly Thistle, in 3 seasons i have beaten them 3 times in the league and lost every other game including 2 cup ties, one a 6-1 humping up in Inverness, for whatever reason this year i have struggled.

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Quality feedback.. I wish the last 30 pages gone were as constructive.

Well I guess the problem is that a lot of people came on here out of frustration over the new ME and this thread pretty rapidly became entirely focused on EM problems imagined or real.

Maybe a single thread with ME feedback for the next major updated of the ME would be a good idea. :)

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I don't mean to boast (too much) here but I'm in January 2013, so first season, with Man Utd but so far I've only conceded 4 goals in the league. So it certainly is possible to keep clean sheets. I have no great idea how I'm managing to do this, I'll admit. I'm not really sure whether it's a combination of good defensive play and my CBs being on form, whether all opposition times have had a couple down the pub before the game, or just blind luck. I do generally dominate possession at home and away, so that probably makes a difference. I keep expecting to be given a thrashing any game now but I did just hand out some seet revenge to Man City with a 5-0 drubbing, so long may the run continue.

Can you please tell me what sort of tactics you're using? Because I feel like I'm playing a very similar tactic to what Man Utd play IRL and I just cannot get a clean sheet to save my life. Like I said, I've replayed the same fixture against Liverpool NINE times and not seen a single clean sheet. I want to keep replaying it until I do finally get a clean sheet just to see how long it takes, but I'm not sure I have the patience.

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Can you please tell me what sort of tactics you're using? Because I feel like I'm playing a very similar tactic to what Man Utd play IRL and I just cannot get a clean sheet to save my life. Like I said, I've replayed the same fixture against Liverpool NINE times and not seen a single clean sheet. I want to keep replaying it until I do finally get a clean sheet just to see how long it takes, but I'm not sure I have the patience.

Dont focus so much on one game, replaying the same game over and over probably wont get the effects you are looking for, you might get a clean sheet in that game but the next game you will be back to square one, instead go into more detail using the stats, find out what kinds of goals your losing most of the time and work on stopping those chances being created. One game can only help you so much as your playing one set of players, but if you constantly unable to keep a clean sheet i would say you need to have a look at the bigger picture, rather than one piece.

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From observation, most goals I am allowing are from my CBs not tracking attacking runs and allowing through balls or crosses to reach attackers far too easily. It's like every remotely threatening attacker has to be played with "tight marking" and even that will invariably fail at least once or twice per match.

I'm sure dialing back the fullbacks from support to defend would help but I don't see that as being particularly realistic. Fullbacks like Santon and Rafael are meant to push up a bit and put crosses in, and I don't think that should render the entire defense a porous mess.

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I wonder if SI have ever thought about bring back the old classic team tactics,you know where you selected say "Man Utd '99" or "Brazil '82" and "Liverpool '84",I think there was about 10 choices.

Don't know if they are still in the game somewhere but I have not seen them for years,could be a good idea for people that are struggling to set up a tactic.

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I'll try and give some of my thoughts. First i apologise if there are some language mistakes, but my written english could be better.

I must say that I find FM13 quite good. I find the new training really good, personally i've never put that many thoughts into the training schedule, but this time i've used a lot of time on this.

I know that a lot of people in here find the new ME flawed, I can of course only speak for my self, but i've had no trouble with the ME. I use a modified tactic from the drop down box, and then i tweak the tactic according to the way I play.

I still think that the agent part, needs some tweaking, they can be really gready (perhaps that's just me). I find the part with the tax, really good.

Overall I absolutely love FM13, and the game have the potential to be the best to this date. But I have experienced some minor details that i want to add.

I do not like the new match screen, i've also posted this in the user interface forum, i hope that SI will add the old match screen for FM14, i'm used to playing games on commentary with highlights, and i really find the new match screen annoying.

Furthermore, I really think that there is a hight amount of goals being disallowed. In my Rangers save, there is 1-2 goals every game being disallowed, both ways, and that's in general.

But again, overall i absolutely love FM13.

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From observation, most goals I am allowing are from my CBs not tracking attacking runs and allowing through balls or crosses to reach attackers far too easily. It's like every remotely threatening attacker has to be played with "tight marking" and even that will invariably fail at least once or twice per match.

I'm sure dialing back the fullbacks from support to defend would help but I don't see that as being particularly realistic. Fullbacks like Santon and Rafael are meant to push up a bit and put crosses in, and I don't think that should render the entire defense a porous mess.

Its worth pointing out that United have not defended well at all this season, here's a good article on it,

http://www1.skysports.com/football/news/11994/8244427/Copying-Barcelona-

You really have a choice with a team like United, do you want to go all out and attack (which it sounds like your doing) or do you want to play a more solid defense and hope your attacking line is always on form. With Rafel at right back you will be exposed, which will lead to your backline becoming disjointed, especially on a quick counter, one will be dragged out of position leaving space for an opposition player. Your esentially defending with two players when the opposition counters, and when your playing as United there is a good chance teams will sit back and hit you quickly when your too far forward.

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This has probably been brought up already but there appears to be a problem with the ME recognising narrow angles when players coming in from the flanks. I have my wide men set as inside forwards and no matter what instructions I give them they run to the byline and then straight to goal trying to score. I have tried it with runs set as rarely and crosses/through balls often and all other variations but it continues. There is no way a player should always be running to the near post from the flank trying to score. I can accept if they try it now and again if nothing else is on but they still do it when there are players free in the centre or far post and a cross is the better option.

I initially thought the problem may have been tactics so I made changes and it continued. I also thought it may have been as I was playing in a poor league and the players lack decision making/intelligence to see the better option. I have tried a save with Barca though and even Messi does the same. It appears to me that the ME doesn't see a narrow angle as an issue and just sees a free path to goal. Commentary lines reflect this with lines like he has an open goal or that was an easy chance when the player misses. Also, the shots are often classed as CCC's which clearly shouldn't be the case.

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Your point is taken, but firstly, I don't think Rafael is as much a liability as you are indicating. I'll have to check when I get home but his ratings in my game are pretty solid, even defensively. Also I have Fletcher set to BWM/D to provide extra cover, and Carrick as DLP/S so he shouldn't be pushing too far up the field either. With a "standard" mentality and fullbacks to set to support (not attack) I'm not sure I should be giving up this number of chances.

Again, the most irritating/troubling part is seeing a CB like Rio Ferdinand who has a 16-17 rating in anticipation get consistently burned by attacking runs. I know Rio has declined IRL but in the game his ratings still put him among the top CBs in the world.

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can and will scouting be tweaked so that scouts put a bit more effort in? i might have this wrong but i dont think they scout as many players as they should

example

my scout is set to look for talent in wales ( dont laugh) and after a couple of days he says hes done and hands me about 5 new players to look at. if i go to the player search screen and add to the filter wales and interested there is a shedload of players of similar "quality" that he could have filled in the blanks with. a lot of them are around 16 years old so could even have been picked up in a new talent search too

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I noticed what would appear to be a bug with player interactions when I was playing yesterday and just got reminded of it when something similar came up just now.

James forrest comes to me and says he's achieved all he can at the club and wants to leave. I reply he can achieve his ambitions here and he asks how I plan to do this. I tell him I think we can win the league and he asks how soon can you do that. I then tell him this season and he says fine, if you don't win the league this season then I'll be off. The thing is though we had already won the league that season weeks before the conversation took place.

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Anyone know when is next update on ME? thanks

From PaulC earlier today in this thread: "we are aiming to release a new ME within a week or so subject to testing"

So maybe early next week but only if the testing reveals no problems. As ever, it won't be released before it's ready.

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After playing for a while i've completely moved away from the "ME is broken" camp. Yes there are bugs that need to be fixed but the game is definitely closer to what it should be than ever.

You can't just approach every game with the same tactic - check, well done SI.

You can't create tactics based on nonsensical instructions and get away with it - check, well done again

Looks like we all have to learn more about actually constructing logical tactics! So my request to SI is that they focus on getting the feedback systems such as assistant feedback to a better level. As it is there is little aid to let you know how to improve your tactics short of some of the guys on these forums.

In truth my main concern right now is that they water things down to please the hordes of complaints.

Let FMC cater for people that don't feel they should have to prepare their tactics for each match.

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When i go on the squad screen for my reserves/u18s it seems like all the stats there are based on their appearances and performances in the first team.

To explain a bit better. I'm looking at my U18 squad now and there are only 2 players with stats. They both have 1 appearance each.

Whereas on FM12 it showed the squads stats in their respective leagues.

1st team showed 1st team stats.

Reserves showed reserves stats.

U18s showed U18s stats.

I really wish it would be possible to have a separate screen for 1st, reserves and youth squads (u18, u19 etc).

I agree with this.

Found it really useful to just drill into the resevers and Under 18's squad and have their stats readily available.

Was this planned?

Can it be put back to how it was?

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My tuppeny worth so far now I have played a couple of friendlies :

The ME : Nothing untoward seen so far bar maybe that players are slow to react when another player miscontrols the ball. At the same time it's nice to see a player miscontrol it. Too often in 12 lower end Clubs passed it around like Brazil !!

Interface : Too many buttons and dropdown menus for my liking especially on the match screen. I found I was pressing the wrong buttons a lot and can't really understand why it's changed from FM12 as the interface was pretty good in my opinion. Especially for an old Classic tactic style gamer like me who is quite happy to come away from the match screen to make changes.

Match view : Have always looked at matches through the TV camera because other views seemed so far away however even tv camera now seems far too far away. You practically need binoculars!! Any possible way of at least making the TV camera closer? Mind you in 12 I was using the FM12 Base Skin so not sure if that helped? Possibly not in the Match Screen.

Transfers : Just from what I have seen at the start of the game quite a few top class players are leaving their Clubs straight off eg Felliani at Everton. Would be nice if coding allowed the squads Clubs have at the start of 2012/2013 season remained that way until at least January Transfer Window.

The main issue though is the interface and match day cameras as I seem to have a headache already!!

But it shows great promise.

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Transfers : Just from what I have seen at the start of the game quite a few top class players are leaving their Clubs straight off eg Felliani at Everton. Would be nice if coding allowed the squads Clubs have at the start of 2012/2013 season remained that way until at least January Transfer Window.

You can do that already, when you set up a new game there is a tickbox that says "allow first transfer window transfer budget" or similar. If you uncheck that then all teams will have a budget of 0 and can only loan or sign free agents in the first window.

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Your point is taken, but firstly, I don't think Rafael is as much a liability as you are indicating. I'll have to check when I get home but his ratings in my game are pretty solid, even defensively. Also I have Fletcher set to BWM/D to provide extra cover, and Carrick as DLP/S so he shouldn't be pushing too far up the field either. With a "standard" mentality and fullbacks to set to support (not attack) I'm not sure I should be giving up this number of chances.

Again, the most irritating/troubling part is seeing a CB like Rio Ferdinand who has a 16-17 rating in anticipation get consistently burned by attacking runs. I know Rio has declined IRL but in the game his ratings still put him among the top CBs in the world.

Looking at stats won't help you to see that he is out of his back position when the opponent counters against your two DC's. The av.r celebrates dribbles and spectacular things, not safe defensive play. Watch the games to see what really happens.

There really are problems with defending, but if done properly it is possible to mend most of that.

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Oh my I discovered the AI still does some really strange things when it comes to buying players.

Bayern play with 1 striker and already had two really good strikers with Gomez and Mandzukic now in the second season the also bought Llorente and Rodrigo, which means they have now 4 quality strikers for 1 starting spot.

Next weird thing is they have sold Alaba to PSG despite him being the only quality FB for the left they had.

Hope that remains the only weird "player stacking" I'll discover.

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I got share this! :)

I just saw my gk, Artur, making a foul... INSIDE THE BOX... stoping Arteta who had just run my defenders! I honestly must say it was one of those moments that i'll never forget... see a gk making a penalty foul! Well done SI! :thup:

The sad part, is that... this was a game i was leading 4-0 at Estadio da Luz... and ended up a 4-4 draw against Arsenal! :lol:

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Looking at stats won't help you to see that he is out of his back position when the opponent counters against your two DC's. The av.r celebrates dribbles and spectacular things, not safe defensive play. Watch the games to see what really happens.

There really are problems with defending, but if done properly it is possible to mend most of that.

I tried pushing Vidic up into a stopper role and Rio back into cover, which I thought might reduce the amount of through balls finding attackers, but it didn't really seem to work. At best it was a wash. Again, I know I could keep the fullbacks in perma-defend but that just doesn't seem that realistic seeing that I'm supposed to be playing attacking football (according to the board) and I have fullbacks that should be well suited to support duty.

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I got share this! :)

I just saw my gk, Artur, making a foul... INSIDE THE BOX... stoping Arteta who had just run my defenders! I honestly must say it was one of those moments that i'll never forget... see a gk making a penalty foul! Well done SI! :thup:

The sad part, is that... this was a game i was leading 4-0 at Estadio da Luz... and ended up a 4-4 draw against Arsenal! :lol:

wow really a historical moment!! we had to wait for a decade for this.. what an illness we have really..

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I got share this! :)

I just saw my gk, Artur, making a foul... INSIDE THE BOX... stoping Arteta who had just run my defenders! I honestly must say it was one of those moments that i'll never forget... see a gk making a penalty foul! Well done SI! :thup:

The sad part, is that... this was a game i was leading 4-0 at Estadio da Luz... and ended up a 4-4 draw against Arsenal! :lol:

Only such a momentous feat could cause such joy in the face of such heartbreaking circumstances.

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I tried pushing Vidic up into a stopper role and Rio back into cover, which I thought might reduce the amount of through balls finding attackers, but it didn't really seem to work. At best it was a wash. Again, I know I could keep the fullbacks in perma-defend but that just doesn't seem that realistic seeing that I'm supposed to be playing attacking football (according to the board) and I have fullbacks that should be well suited to support duty.

If you look at your Goals Report and see where the assists are coming from you can try and shut them down before they start, if you notice that you are conceding a lot down one wing then you can try and use that full back to man mark the winger on that side. Generally by analysing the results using that page you can start to see where the issues are and work on them. (Best to try and cover one thing at a time and slowly build your defense up as you can see what the change does)

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Played a few friendlies now with my classic 4-4-2 from last year and can't see any difference in the ME from last year to be honest. Still getting a lot of goals from wingers heading in at the back post not that I'm complaining mind you just that Benayoun has scored more headers than Carroll !! A few players sliding around on their arse in magic carpet routine but definitely the oddest thing was my striker Maiga getting injured,,,,, whilst kicking off the match.... I kid you not!!

Anyways,, A couple of bits of advice if I may ask. 1. Is there anyway of turning off the Assistant Manager speech bubbles in game because they are annoying. 2. Is there any way of getting the replays to show the replay the right way not a mirror image? For some reason a player scores in the right hand goal and the replay shows him scoring in the left hand goal!! I don't have any setting reversed as far as I can see...

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After playing for a while i've completely moved away from the "ME is broken" camp. Yes there are bugs that need to be fixed but the game is definitely closer to what it should be than ever.

You can't just approach every game with the same tactic - check, well done SI.

You can't create tactics based on nonsensical instructions and get away with it - check, well done again

Looks like we all have to learn more about actually constructing logical tactics! So my request to SI is that they focus on getting the feedback systems such as assistant feedback to a better level. As it is there is little aid to let you know how to improve your tactics short of some of the guys on these forums.

In truth my main concern right now is that they water things down to please the hordes of complaints.

Let FMC cater for people that don't feel they should have to prepare their tactics for each match.

I agreed with everything until that last sentence! FMC is streamlined, but still precisely the same in many regards, Match Engine included. Tactics are every bit as critical in FMC as they are in the simulation mode, arguably moreso without the additional influence of team talks and their impact on morale to factor in.

There seems to be a prevailing misconception that FMC is "dumbed down" and aimed at people who want an arcade style experience. That isn't the case on either count as far as I'm concerned.

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On the training screen Fletchdt.. right hand side.. two tick boxes.

joWi3.png?1

But not if you are managing a semi-professional team. The option isn't shown for obvious reasons.

It should be there for players on full time contracts, dont you think?

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Well just finished my 1st season with palace on my network game with mate and after a blazing start i finished bottom and was relegated :( i'm still baffled on what changed to make my team turn so bad, without stating the obvious my defense were poor and i felt they were't following my instructions properly more noticeably the 2nd half of season if this was due to them losing faith in me and trying a bit more of there own stuff then ok but i only got a few messages right near end of season that a few players were losing faith

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-RGmC4w1m0&feature=plcp

Not sure how to embed or I would have, but although it's **** quality, this is the comical defending I mentioned previous post

There's definitely some issue that occasionally pops up where defenders/keepers miscalculate their trajectory to the ball, I've seen it before myself. Hopefully this is one of the bugs that gets patched soon.

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There's definitely some issue that occasionally pops up where defenders/keepers miscalculate their trajectory to the ball, I've seen it before myself. Hopefully this is one of the bugs that gets patched soon.

Hope so. This issue in the video, and the goals from ridiculous angles are my main bug, also midfielders and fullbacks getting stuck in.

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