Your final rating of the game. scale 1-10

[thethe]

Played 23 days. Running in the background a lot, but halfway through the 20/21 season.

Might be the last FM I buy. It probably won't, but I do want it to be. I still play it on a regular basis, but there's little or no fun involved in it for me anymore. I've played the series since the mid-'90s, and I can't see any of the previous versions being weaker than this one. I'm sure it's the most complex one, but that's irrelevant to me; the final result is an unrealistic and absurd mess. Toney's post (#43) covers a lot of it, but I'd like to add a few things:

*Players inexplicably dropped from the line-up. Verona (Serie B) transferlisted and dropped Brede Moe to the reserves, out of nowhere, after the first four matches. He had a massive avg. rating of 9,97. How and why does this happen? If it's a financial issue, then why wait until after the transfer window has closed? Why is David Silva in the starting lineup seven times the first season? And Balotelli only twice? RVP plays eight times in total the second season? This is beyond silly.

*AI randomly signing players. Sold Coutinho to Sunderland. They paid £17 million, and he's their best paid player. Plays one game (in which he scores a goal) the entire season. Wesley Sneijder signs for City (on massive wages), and isn't even registered for the league or Champions League.

*Off-field player intelligence. Wesley Sneijder didn't care at all that he played four games in three seasons; he was still very happy with his situation at City. He wanted to stay at the club even after being transferlisted. Balotelli's been at Lyon for three seasons now - the last two in the reserves - and he still wants to stay.

*Unwanted players being offered new contracts. Paulo Dybala has barely played at all the first six seasons at Palermo. They've still offered him three contract extentions, and he's gladly accepted them all, despite asking to be sold on numerous occasions. They've immediately transferlisted him within days after the last two extensions. Lyon offer Mario Balotelli a new contract on Dec 30th, and then transferlist him the next day, befoe he's even responded to their offer. What is this?

*Former national coaches accepting any role. Antonio Conte's my DOF (didn't realise this was a bug when I signed him; probably wouldn't have if I knew). Valverde's willing to be a U20 coach at Inter. This is an insane bug.

*David Beckham signs for Carlisle on £3,000 a week. Wouldn't happen. Pato retires because not a single club in the world wants to sign him as a free agent. The CA/PA system should've been replaced at least five years ago.

*Numerous flaws with number of games being played in inactive leagues. Several players in the lower leagues playing up to 60 league games a season. Three goalkeepers at Olympiakos played more than 30 games last season. I've yet to see a single player in Porto play more than 27 games. Mateo Kovacic barely plays for Kroatia Zagreb (and is still signed by Juventus for £20 million). League games randomly stops being simulated in some leagues (not a single player in Paraguay has played a league game the last six seasons, according to their career history).

*The AI really doesn't know how to handle talented youngsters. Mario Wiersma's one of Ajax most talented players here. He joins Sampdoria on loan. Fair enough. He turns out to be a success. The next season, they send him on loan to their feeder club 1860 München, in the second bundesliga. From Serie A to 2nd Bundesliga. Why?

Wage demands. Fringe players out of nowhere wants me to triple their wages. I say no and transferlist them; they join a new club on lower wages than they already had. Also, the way players (and agents) assess contract offers from several clubs at the same time is fundamentally wrong. I've got a massive wage budget, so my £45,000 a week offer is regarded as worse than Almeria's £15,000 offer.

*Flaws in AI transfer demands. It's impossible to negotiate the fee if an AI club has transferlisted a player. If a player has asked to be transferlisted, it's impossible to sign him on loan. I just tried signing Richard Smallwood from Boro. Their asking price is £2 million, and his contract expires in six months. Tried signing him for £1,9; they refuse. Which could realistically happen, but I'd like to hear you explain why they reject my offer to pay a monthly fee of £110 million to sign him on loan. They basically just turned down a £660 million offer for a player they don't even want. If that doesn't reveal how flawed the AI is.

*The scouting reports on the next opponent are amazingly irrelevant. Not even a word about their style or play.

*AI not doing anything to get out of financial trouble. Lazio's a third tier team here. They've struggled financially since season one, and they've done nothing to prevent it. Why would a club basically bankrupt offer new contracts to underperforming players like Giuseppe Biava and Alvaro Gonzalez when they've got two of Italy's brightest prospects in their squad, playing in the same positions? To make matters even worse, they failed to replace Marchetti at all when he left the club on a free. The year they were relegated, their GK was a 17 year old from their youth squad. I do realise that they struggle financially, but they'd still sign a new goalkeeper. At least one on loan.

*The defeats. I don't get it. I've seen a few tweets from Miles about this, saying there's always a reason why you lose. I've had a look at my defeats the last two seasons, and I've been the superior team in literally every single one of them; both in possession and number of chances. It would be better if my team genuinely underperformed, because then I'd at least have something to work with, but to me it just looks like every single player in my team suddenly forgot how to finish. It's incredibly frustrating.

*The ME. The worst part. It's more complex than the previous ones - I'll give you that -, but the end product isn't good enough. It'll probably better in the next version, and even better in the one after that, but paying customers still aren't alpha testers. It should never have seen the light of day this soon. Tactically, the AI is horrible, too. Milan had two of their three centre halfs sent off (3-5-2 with wingbacks), and they played the remaining 20 minutes of the game with one centre half. I scored five goals. I've won every possible title with Inter, so this isn't me whining because I'm unable to "crack" the game.

Basically, I do feel genuinely cheated this year. This might be harsh, but to charge full price for this product is an insult, and I find it extremely disrespectful to treat your loyal, paying customers as alpha testers. I realise that you have your deadlines, but that really isn't our problem. The game was a disgrace back in November. It's playable in its current state, but it's still extremely flawed, and I feel this is where it should've been at release. I see great potential here, but I saw that in FM12 too. I know I'll probably buy FM14, but it's the first time since 1997 I'm close to even considering not buying the next version. My final rating of the game is 2,5/10. Could've been higher, but realism has always been important to me, and the way the footballing world acts in FM13 really ruins the whole experience.

[Corwin86]

Only reached around 180 hours of playtime of this years edition of football manager. Compared to 2012 where I ended up at 2200 hours or so. Can`t tell any accurate numbers for hours spent as I asked for a refund from Steam which they denied me. After a couple of e-mails between me and support I decided to shut down my steam account and im never going to use it again or create a new account. Ordered a football manager 2011 cd.

As I don`t have that much playtime invested in this years edition, it doesn`t feel right to give it a rating, but I still do it and I`ll end up around 6/10.

Personally I agree with a few previous posters claiming that we payed to play a "beta" version of the game. I installed football manager 2013 on both my laptop and desktop but experiensed so many problems on both that I eventually gave up the game. Had problems with online play/contracts/player interactions/ME/player ratings from assistant/coach/scout. I actually never managed to get to to the first winter transfer window on any save I started. I gave this game a chance all the way until the transfer update came out, but once I had it downloaded and installed and tried to start over, realising that the problems I had were still there I didn`t have the patience to go on.

I'm glad not to be... only

In this post, I was "attacked" (as others) because I simply said that this game was, for me and us, definitely not very successful (ME, and others...).

Even, someone said that we were expressing badly!

This is not possible: one have PAID for a game, and don't even have the possibility to express his disappointment...

I mean, I have also bought "Omerta: City of Gangsters" and that was a pretty dull game, and I express myself on the forum of the developer... I had no problem.

Here, there are people that are simply crazy for this game, and every different opinion is a sin worthy of being pointed out and cursed...

I don't think that these peopel are helping very much SI to sell more games in the future, because I'm pretty sure that FM 13 was a pretty disappointment for many, and FM 14 will surely have problem on selling well as the previous versions...

[Corwin86]

AI not doing anything to get out of financial trouble. Lazio's a third tier team here. They've struggled financially since season one, and they've done nothing to prevent it. Why would a club basically bankrupt offer new contracts to underperforming players like Giuseppe Biava and Alvaro Gonzalez when they've got two of Italy's brightest prospects in their squad, playing in the same positions? To make matters even worse, they failed to replace Marchetti at all when he left the club on a free. The year they were relegated, their GK was a 17 year old from their youth squad. I do realise that they struggle financially, but they'd still sign a new goalkeeper. At least one on loan.

Ahahahah, great

Lazio was relegated also in my game! I bought Kozak (and another young midfielder, that know I don't remember) and I created my team for Serie B

Than, the ME let me simply abandon and then uninstall the game...

[jambo14]

I'm going to give it 5/10, I just wish it wasn't pre determined results but hey ho that's life can't have it good all the time

[Flohrinho]

Maybe a 5/10 but somehow I never got much fun out of this version, which is mainly down to the ME just being too random.

I think my played time really says it all FM 12 (1275 hrs) and FM 13 (348 hrs). My longest save on FM 12 ran for I think almost 14 seasons and in FM 13 it was 3 seasons.

Of course FM 12 had it's issues especially the bad AI managers and the fact that you just could walk through every competition after about 3 seasons but it was still a lot more fun because you actually felt that the effort you put into the game had some effect with FM 13 it really didn't feel that way.

[Canaries Fan]

I've played for about 200 hours.

I'd give the game an 8/10 personally. Almost everything is working as it should, with the exception of the match engine which has several flaws that bump the score down. That said, almost every other area of the game is an improvement over FM 12, which I didn't much like.

If I'd had to review the game on release day however, it probably would've been a 4/10. One thing I'd like to see SI commit to more in the future is better testing of their games. An extended beta period might be a possible way to decrease issues on release.

[paul1224]

I gave the game 6/10 but having played the game further I have the following gripes that it would be good if SI took on board:

1. Watching in 3D is more like watching 'Dancing on Ice'........I've never seen a ball run so fast whether the pitch is perfect, mud splattered, snow ridden, etc.......it feels like you are always playing down hill when the ball rolls and is a bit of a turn off when watching 3D as the balance isn't right with the true roll of a football.

2. I have played in a range of leagues and at different levels and full backs are rubbish in them all. I'm sick and tired of my full back constantly pulling back and purposefully allowing the winger to cross the ball, very rarely do I see my full backs block crosses and again it is very unrealistic.

3. Full backs are also infuriating when you have your team on attacking, your 'shout' is 'get the ball forward' your goalie rolls the ball out to the full back, he has huge space in front of him but just walks with the ball. He then doesn't pass at all until an opposition player starts to close him down then he turns his back on that player shielding the ball and just ambles around for a few seconds until he decides that 'time' actually isn't an issue to him and 'getting the ball forward' is overrated and just passes back to the goalie.

4. A weird thing has started happening to my game, when I go to the 3D match I have my settings on 'pitch' so it goes straight to the pitch but my settings keep being re-set to 'overview' which is annoying as I then have to click 'pitch' every single game I play or change the preferences constantly.

5. In general the ME has gone backwards and the 'feel' of a game is much worse than FM12 in my opinion although goalkeepers and their saves/actions do seem a bit better.

6. I know there has been debate on this but morale is still far too big an influence in my opinion.

Overall the more I play the more it is now a 5/10........a really poor edition to the series and it is showing real signs of tiredness now.

[squashstar666]

Thankfully your explanation allows anyone from SI caring about this thread to completely disregard your opinion.

If that is all you wish for then you should be pretty happy when you realise your theory is nonsense.

Personally, and in light of the current update, I am going for at 7/10. Value for money is 10/10 though, but the game needs improved for next year.

Didnt you just do what you just cained the other guy for ???? You havnt given any basis to your score except about as much as the other guy???

Poxy fan boys !!

[molsen]

Rating 5/10 (180 hours)

Match engine/tactics is the big issue for me this time around. I appreciate SI pursuing a realism factor here, but the game is just not fun anymore. I have so big difficulties in succeeding even though i have a good team. Its so difficult to make strikers work for instance. People rant "its you tactics"... yes of cause, but can it really be true that you have to study a massive amount of forum posts to get tactics to work? People would then argue that i should go FM classics, but thats not the way! I appreciated FM06, 07 etc. and the depth of the game feature so dont wanna go that way. It just seems SI is overcomplicating stuff and forgetting that the majority of gamers just want to have fun, and then leave it to pro's to take Stevenage into the Champions League...

[Herbert Fandel]

Didnt you just do what you just cained the other guy for ???? You havnt given any basis to your score except about as much as the other guy???

Poxy fan boys !!

I didn't give any explanation, he gave a ridiculously false one.

Not the same thing at all

Wouldn't a 'f****y' have given it more than 7/10?

[GundeGran]

There has been some very good points in this thread, especially with regard to some of the areas that could (and really should) be improved to next year. FM13 has really got me wondering if the best solution for the series would be to simply release a game every 2nd year, instead of the current "one game per year" rate, since it seems that all the stuff we have been bitching about the last few years or so (like media, ai horrendous squad management abilities, etc.) is still there, year after year. The main problem for me with the series is that I need to play a team from an obscure nation in order to make the game a challenge over a couple of seasons. Even after 5 seasons, its still a challenge to win the champions league with IFK Gothenburg, a swedish mid-table team. If i play in a league with a rating of 4 stars or more, I can attract superregens and fantastic players without any competition from the AI, and thus easily build a squad that can dominate Europe as long as I know the basics of using tactics (which most of us do, having played since early CM versions).

This, for me, is the biggest problem with FM13 (just as it was with FM12). The AI really cant play the game. And when the average players squad building capacity is ten times better then the AI's, after 5-10 seasons all kind of challenge in the game is gone forever. Even if I play with my youth team, I win the swedish premier division every year, just because the AI cant build a squad. That just has to be adressed with FM14. And if it cant, hell, just release a transfer and database update for season 13/14 and skip fm14 all together, spent proper time doing fm15 and finally realise the potential of the series.

[Govnar1]

AI overall 4/10 <---- transfer AI: 4/10, contract AI: 4/10, manager AI: 3/10

ME: 6/10 <---- improvement over 2012

Training/player development: NA <---- haven't played enough to comment

Database: 9/10 <---- just brilliant for a sport that doesn't have available (at least to general public) great evaluation tools and advanced stats like baseball and basketball

Media: 3/10 <---- repetitive, boring

UI: 2/10 <---- worst part of the game, it's a nightmare especially on small high resolution laptop screens

Overall rating: 55 hours <---- lowest ever

[milnerpoint]

Id go for 8/10, a few issues here and there, but its a step forward from last year. UI needs a wee bit of work, i dont like those drop down menu things and its annoying that some of the news articles dont work properly, ie the one that says player x wont be considered for international squad because of lack of games, despite playing almost every game, albeit away on loan. But nothing in the ME really bugs me that much, wingers dont cross enough for my liking but thats about it.

[Harima83]

Seeing all these reviews, I think it would be interesting open a new thread where to post our ranking of all CM/FM editions we played.

[Uwextreme]

I've worked my way through 32 seasons on a single save since the beta totalling 628 hours and although I do leave the game running a lot in the background that is the most hours i've ever totalled up to this point after release since my student days. This is probably the most i've ever enjoyed an FM game although I have to say some of that is down to "house rules" I place on myself, as much as AI squad management keeps improving every year it's still a long way from being perfect so I don't use my scouts to judge a player simply because I feel it's too easy to build a team of young stars that will dominate in seasons to come. Don't get me wrong, i've done that before and enjoyed it but I was looking for a more realistic challenge this year and in not using scouts I find I have a more realistic ratio of bad signings, my squad is still very good though and is successful but not one that will win every trophy every year.

My biggest problem with the game this year is the lack of transfer activity towards my players from the AI, it is just far too easy to keep the same squad together for years and years so again I use house rules to move players on at a more realistic rate. In an ideal world I wouldn't need to use any house rules to enjoy the game but I would say doing this has kept my interest in the game longer this year than most, if not all previous versions have.

By no means is my enjoyment of the game solely down to house rules though and I do feel this is the best FM i've ever played, I do like the new Match Engine and although it clearly has it's faults I think it's a great base from which to build from. There are other improvements like the new DOF that has made my life easier, better international management that has helped keep me interested longer and even though it took some time to arrive I do love the dark skin coupled with the UI. With better AI squad management and transfer activity I would score this game higher but for me right now I would give FM13 a good 8/10 but still with room for improvement.

[Guest]

The problem is that less informed & gullible people will believe it to be true.

[jambo14]

The problem is that less informed & gullible people will believe it to be true.

But it is pre determined results barside I wasn't saying nothing that isn't true, of course the result can still be influenced to a certain degree in the match

[milnerpoint]

Not in the sense your making out. Less informed people will read that the wrong way, which im sure is your intention.

[haunted1234]

i wish they would open pools before they start developing the game further, and let the fans who actually buy this "on going project" decide which features they shall add/work on... instead of deciding themselfs...

[milnerpoint]

Yes because thats how the industry works isnt it? You base your new game on the opinion of about 5% of your customer base who bother to use your forum.....

[haunted1234]

iam sure once such a campaign is started, it will hit the news of every pc magazine / newssite, and the people who actually care for the game would vote...

[llama3]

Hours Played: 441

Final Rating: 6/10

Comments:

• Long period of massively flawed match engine was very poor.
  
• Transfer AI is poor at times.
  
• Match Engine still a bit ropy on occasions but much improved from FM12 in overall quality.
  
• Forces an improvement in manager knowledge and coherent tactics - however, for those that do not have the time or inclination to spend ages learning, perhaps your Assistant Manager can help point out an unrealistic/unwise tactic in future - i.e. "You have picked 4 holding midfielders, and we have no width" etc etc
  

[Guest]

hours played 139

Not gone far enough in the game to comment on most things as I seem to always want to start a new save after 1 season.

the game seems good overall but below are some things that I would like to see improved in future versions.

Club transfers

In the transfer windows I have been in I have not had 1 single bid on any of my players (Arsenal) unless I have offered them out. Also it is to easy to snap up top young talent , why do no other big clubs compete for them.

Media and team talks

I dont see the point in it , its good that you can get your AM to do this side of the game but I also wish it just wasn't there at all , also team talks I find this rather boring as well as most AM are useless at it if you let them do it.

I wish that both these were somehow implemented differently in the game or not there at all , morale is a key part to the team its just this side of the game is to repetitive.

Classic mode

boring and pointless , just get rid of it and put your full attention to improving the full fm mode , I dont get much time to play FM but still think FM full mode is better.

overall 7/10

[sirgiorgio]

i wish they would open pools before they start developing the game further, and let the fans who actually buy this "on going project" decide which features they shall add/work on... instead of deciding themselfs...

I don't (fully) agree. Personally (if I was in charge ) I'd rather hire three or four professional (or even amateur) footballers/coaches/managers: nobody better than them would know how far the game is from being a "real football simulator". People (me included) used to blame the ME but it's much more complicated than that: it's the mix of tactics/team talks/match preparation/ratings/animations that doesn't work as it should.

Random examples:

Standard (Merriam-Webster definition): Something established by authority, custom, or general consent as a model or example. So, what does "standard mentality" supposed to mean?

A lot of people here seem to agree that a good ball possession tactic works best with the "counter" mentality. Have you read the in-game description of the "counter" mentality? Could it be more "counter"-intuitive?

Can you get some useful information from the rating system?

Can you get some useful information from your assistant? "Player X is quite error-prone today" (three seconds later) "Player X (same guy) has been dominant in the air for us"; 3rd minute, a guy picks up a knock "He's exhausted and we should think about subbing him"; 42nd minute, us 3 them 0 "We are seriously overrun in midfield", oooh, that's interesting...

(How) does fitness influence performances?

Why do AI managers use all those weird formations? Why don't they ever try and change formation, mentality, players? They just do their lousy job until they get sacked. Why isn't 4-2-3-1 (two MC, AMR, AMC, AML) a default formation?

Back to the topic, after the nth patch the game earns a 7: definitely too gamey and "esoteric" to be called a "realistic football simulation", but as a simple computer game is entertaining and addictive as always. That is, of course, as long as you understand what you have to do to "win".