Humanising Players & Other Club Issues

[Hockmiester]

Football Manager Touch 2017 Android

Sony Z3 Tablet SGP612

Android 6.0.1

Build 23.5.A.1.291

FM17 Version 17.1.2

I have played 10 seasons with Weston-Super-Mare and have just been promoted to the Premiership as a back drop to my comments. 

Humanising Players

I appreciate this is a tough thing to code but I have noticed a few things which do not work in the real world of people and players. I believe this is largely around a player’s life desperation, which is not factored in to decisions. I appreciate some of these comments may be highlighted elsewhere but I have followed a few scenarios to conclusion to see where it leads.

• Players leaves club due to broken promises. After promising players to get them to sign for my club in the Sky Bet Championship (often sign more players) I thought I had achieved this by the volume & quality signed (10 new players). Despite then breaking these promises my team was promoted to the Premiere league. The following season (start of Premiership) these players requested transfers away from the team and signed for low placed Championship teams rather than play in the Premiere league. I don’t believe a player would pass up on playing in the top flight after winning promotion to join a relegation battle in the Championship. Success would negate promises in real terms. 
• Players not signing contracts out of desperation. Having come through the pyramid my players are on very low wages. Mostly this wasn’t a problem and I tied all players down to long contracts. After reaching the Premiership some players asked for better contracts (fair enough) but asked for salaries I couldn’t physically offer as it was non-negotiable by the player and the board didn’t allow salaries to that level at my club (Existing £7k p/w with the player wanting £50k p/w). As I have 3 more years left on the contract at £7k I decided if you must go, then I will play you for 3 more years and let you go on a free at the end. Current salary is approx. £364k a year. I can offer £25k p/w or £1,300,000 but the player refuses. I don’t believe a player would turn down £2.8m in base salary to leave on a free transfer at 32 years old. This is without enhanced bonus payments. EXAMPLE: David de Gea was on £40k p/w with Man Utd. After his deal to Real Madrid collapsed rather than be on £40k p/w for the next year to leave on a free he took the £200k p/w for 3 years because he couldn’t turn down millions of pounds a year for no reason yet my players are doing this.
• Players of a suitable ability or slightly higher ability in lower leagues remain on a free transfer rather than sign for you. Players who are released by clubs and who cannot find a new club turn down a professional contract and remain unemployed for several years before retiring. A ex League 2 player would sign for a VNL team if it was the only option. Real players would have to pay the rent so if the choice was go work in Argos or sign for a VNL team then I believe plenty of players would do so and particularly youth players from the Premiership in real life drop multiple leagues to find a club and a salary. I experienced none of this.

• The not signing mentioned above also happens for your players. I had players leave on a free because of wages. Sit on a free transfer for 2 years with no income before signing back with my club. Why would someone go be unemployed for two years when their old team is desperate to have them?

• Signing new players who either refuse to talk or refusing a contract because it the salary isn’t high enough or they feel you can’t meet demands (more prevalent in lower leagues) but then sign for often lower league teams on a lower salary. I had examples of players refusing a professional contract for a League 2 team at £1.2k p/w to sign for a VNL team on a part time contract for £700 p/w because they said I couldn’t meet their wage demands. Firstly, I don’t believe a pro contract would be turned down over a part time and if motivated by money why would they take the lower offer in a lower league.

A player desperation factor which raises dramatically the longer they are out of work would make smaller clubs more attractive.

Club Management

·         Weston-Super-Mare sign a new kit sponsor in the Premiership in 2025 worth £95k per year. Man Utd’s urinal cakes would attract more sponsorship money. Middlesbrough have a £1m deal for real this season (1 year remaining) with Bournemouth’s £2m for 1 season. In 10 years time with inflation £95k is unrealistic.

·         Despite reaching the premiership with a wage bill of salaries £2k p/w to £20k p/w (mostly around £6k p/w) and TOTAL player purchases over the 10 years of £1.5m (nearly all 70+ players were free transfers) my team don’t make a profit and are always broke. With such low outgoing and a small stadium the income from success would increase the bank balance quicker. 

·         Selling players is often impossible. Over 10 years I have had less than 5 offers/sales on my players of which ZERO are from unsolicited offers seeing if I want to sell (in that I didn’t offer players at greatly discounted price to all clubs), nearly all players I no longer want sit in the reserves for 1 or 2 years before leaving on a free. This is particularly strange for players who performed well. I (personally) don’t want players older than 30/31 years old. Example: My team were promoted to League 1 and I have had a player who has scored 30 goals a season for 4 seasons at 31 years old. Valued at £200k and I offer at £20k with no takers. I often have had players in the Championship or League 1 who would be awesome for a League 2 side make no offers, leave on a free and then retire. The positive to my team (but still unrealistic) if I have a super player age 22 scoring for fun each season. No higher club ever steal them from me. While this has enabled me to keep excellent players until I'm done with them in reality bigger teams would snap up talent.     

·         I have only played with WSM but no ex internationals who are 34+ and out of work are interested in my team regardless of the league I’m in unlike older versions of FM. By this I mean players from high countries and not Congo’s greatest player.

·         The club keeps signing poor doctors. I have a 4 star doctor but then after a few season I have about 4 extra doctors all 1 star or less.

·         Not enough good statistic club staff but untested. In previous versions, you could find a member of staff with excellent stats but completely untested so you could get a scout with excellent judgment skills.

·         This works in your favour but is technically unrealistic. Coming from a lower league the expectations in competitions are often very low. The board would set me a target of reaching round 1 proper in a cup but I start in round 2. So I instantly score a excellent competition rating from the board.

·         I’d expect there would be a small chance of a small team rising fast to be purchased by a Russian Billionaire or similar. If the club is rising fast and have a value of £1m it’s worth a punt to a investor. A takeover has never given any money for transfers or salary.   

Miscellaneous

• Despite the update the unlockables DO NOT unlock after achievement.

• Unless I have unknowingly turned off a setting I can’t see an option to interact with the media very often (outside of transfer deadline day). Thus all my stats are maxed out on all other areas but my media bar is empty.   

[HemHat]

14 hours ago, Hockmiester said:

·         Selling players is often impossible. Over 10 years I have had less than 5 offers/sales on my players of which ZERO are from unsolicited offers seeing if I want to sell (in that I didn’t offer players at greatly discounted price to all clubs), nearly all players I no longer want sit in the reserves for 1 or 2 years before leaving on a free. This is particularly strange for players who performed well. I (personally) don’t want players older than 30/31 years old. Example: My team were promoted to League 1 and I have had a player who has scored 30 goals a season for 4 seasons at 31 years old. Valued at £200k and I offer at £20k with no takers. I often have had players in the Championship or League 1 who would be awesome for a League 2 side make no offers, leave on a free and then retire. The positive to my team (but still unrealistic) if I have a super player age 22 scoring for fun each season. No higher club ever steal them from me. While this has enabled me to keep excellent players until I'm done with them in reality bigger teams would snap up talent.     

 

I've noticed that despite scoring 62 goals in two seasons, no one has even made an enquiry for my striker. Seems slightly silly.

[Double Indemnity]

Most of these problems are caused by the creakiness of the Reputation system — either your club's Reputation or the individual players'.