Football Manager Early Access Beta *Official* Feedback Thread - 18.0.3

[Cougar2010]

6 minutes ago, Smurf said:

Haven't got access to the Beta - but following this thread with great interest.

Is it really going to take 4-5 hours to get through pre-season? Really take 95 minutes to get to first match???

What is going on that it takes this long?

I normally get through about 3 seasons in FM12 in about 4 hours.

Personal preferences got a lot to do with it.

According to Steam I played four hours last night but realistically I probably played for about two with the other two just FM sitting in the background.

In that time I setup a manager, started unemployed, did some interviews, got a job and played through about a month of preseason.  I'm yet to play a match and yes I was playing around/looking at some of the new features like scouting/medical centre/dynamics etc.

In truth when I move to a new club or start a new save I often spend about 2-3 hours just looking through the team, staff, facilities etc to get a grasp of the team before playing a match.

Once underway I play 3-4 matches an hour on average.

[XaW]

2 minutes ago, Seb Wassell said:

Ah yes indeed. Those ratings are relative, so he is poor compared to the other players that also play that position.

Are you sure? He is the best AM in the team, and one of two and the other aren't natural in the AM, he is even poorer in the AM position...?

[Seb Wassell]

6 minutes ago, Svenc said:

 

Did you ever consider providing "benchmarks"? From my experience 3/4 of "frustration" this game creates tends to come from the fact that people aim for completely fantasies in every area possible and/or don't much follow half the stuff they experience on FM day in-day out including streaks, everything. There is a "legacy element" to it for sure, e.g. older releases that weren't quite as "realistic" or had AI/engine weakness that allowed to steamroll/beat the game and never look back. But it's not only legacy elements interfering. Still remember a thread in the tactics forum from a couple weeks ago where I had to point out to someone that despite the perceived "bad finishing", the forwards of the guy would (overall) convert just mighty fine. Both in the context of the game (how do other forwards do?) plus football. Unlike ten+ years ago, stats pages and such are all over the web these days, and they collect figures never shown on television too. The target audience you guys aim for is really fairly wide, and such kind of feedback as such to be expected (you can't really "blame" anyone, I guess). In particular if outside of FM virtually every football game is completely arcade fantasy either way.

A fundamental aim of the new Medical Centre is to provide this feedback to the User. Primarily it should aid in aligning expectations and outcomes and secondly it should provide the tools to influence said outcomes.

[Super Bladesman]

Like the intro music, but the way it presents the title/artist info makes me think there must be a music player built in now. If there is, I can't find it. If there isn't, there should be.

[Cap'nRad]

6 minutes ago, RTHerringbone said:

Hopefully not, as it is an entirely arbitrary "experiment" which you only ever see in training drills and hardly ever in real football. FM aims to simulate "normal" football, and 2 defenders against 6 attackers is not common enough for SI to expend much dev time modelling.

Yeah but the fact that it's a possibility in the game means that it should be accounted for. Also, it highlights a lot of fundamental flaws with both attacking and defensive actions. The attackers especially seem unable  to make the obviously right decisions and that is mostly on the M.E, not the situation, especially given that it's Barcelona.

Edited October 27, 2017 by Cap'nRad

[Seb Wassell]

2 minutes ago, XaW said:

Are you sure? He is the best AM in the team, and one of two and the other aren't natural in the AM, he is even poorer in the AM position...?

How does he compare to others in the league? It would be worth checking this one with the guys in our UI forum - https://community.sigames.com/forum/567-user-interface/ - if you believe there is an issue.

[Svenc]

12 minutes ago, RTHerringbone said:

Hopefully not, as it is an entirely arbitrary "experiment" which you only ever see in training drills and hardly ever in real football. FM aims to simulate "normal" football, and 2 defenders against 6 attackers is not common enough for SI to expend much dev time modelling.

I did such in prior releases often, and whilst it resulted in a few interesting decisions, the scorelines still went up as far as 20s and 30s. Also early FM 2015, where defenses were easily overrun all the time with up to half a team not tracking back simply based on a pick in duty, every second attack a goal/decent opportunity, and the forums being flooded with posts providing back to back hockey scorelines. Still an interesting watch, this. And based on prior releases, a fairly surprising one, in particular if that's from the same match.

Edited October 27, 2017 by Svenc

[Neil Brock]

22 minutes ago, 71834 said:

I assume there's no way to change this then? Is it working as intended @Neil Brock ?

Probably worth raising on the match engine bugs forum if you think there's an issue. Thanks.

[Cap'nRad]

5 minutes ago, Super Bladesman said:

It's like watching England play...

SI have said if the PKM is submitted they'll look into it.

 

Haha yeah, I hope so... just don't know how much they can change or tinker with the M.E this close to release.

[XaW]

Just now, Seb Wassell said:

How does he compare to others in the league? It would be worth checking this one with the guys in our UI forum - https://community.sigames.com/forum/567-user-interface/ - if you believe there is an issue.

Probably very poor since I'm a poor team, but I'll post it as a possible issue. Thanks! 

[dmndmn]

1 hour ago, luke4387 said:

Can someone tell me if this is an issue with my laptop (it's a quad core i7 with a top Nvidia graphics card) or is it because the game is still beta?

Me having the same problem my laptop 3d performance looks like 5 stars but 3d match not fast enough ( with medium graphics lol)

[Neil Brock]

18 minutes ago, Cap'nRad said:

Any chance of this being fixed or is this how the M.E will be come release?

 

 

No, we won't be making vast changes to allow completely unrealistic scenarios with little evidence behind them work better. The user has edited the footage in such a way that it's not really much use to us. Potentially he's had 100 chances there and shown us the 10 out of all of them that he missed. We'd really need a pkm and realistic game-worthy examples to look into this further and then potentially we could make changes. Thanks. 

[puffascruffowitz]

I have to say I'm not crazy now how in the staff and player searches you have to click on the "Edit Search" instead of having all your filters up top where you can pick and choose more readily. 

Not a big deal, but just adds extra clicking. I guess it was a space thing to have to open it in a small window? 

Also I feel it's a big letdown to not give us back the ability to use our own photo for our manager profile. It's such a simple thing and everyone was clamoring for it back last year. 

Edited October 27, 2017 by puffascruffowitz

[Cap'nRad]

4 minutes ago, Svenc said:

I did such in prior releases often, and whilst it resulted in a few interesting decisions, the scorelines still went up as far as 20s and 30s. Also early FM 2015, where defenses were easily overrun all the time with up to half a team not tracking back simply based on a pick in duty, every second attack a goal/decent opportunity. Still an interesting watch, this.

Did the actions seem similar in this video to your previous tests?

[Seb Wassell]

7 minutes ago, XaW said:

Probably very poor since I'm a poor team, but I'll post it as a possible issue. Thanks! 

Cheers @XaW

[Dagenham_Dave]

2 minutes ago, puffascruffowitz said:

I have to say I'm not crazy now how in the staff and player searches you have to click on the "Edit Search" instead of having all your filters up top where you can pick and choose more readily. 

Not a big deal, but just adds extra clicking. I guess it was a space thing to have to open it in a small window? 

People love making up names for FM like 'Morale Manager' and 'Crossing Manager' - This year, it should be called 'Extra Click Manager' - Although it's not really that snappy. 

[Cap'nRad]

Just now, Neil Brock said:

No, we won't be making vast changes to allow completely unrealistic scenarios with little evidence behind them work better. The user has edited the footage in such a way that it's not really much use to us. Potentially he's had 100 chances there and shown us the 10 out of 90 he missed. We'd really need a pkm and game-worthy examples to look into this further. Thanks. 

Alright, I understand the lack of changes this close to release, however wouldn't you agree that an attack force of messi, suarez, iniesta, rakitic, dembele, and busquets should be scoring 100 out of 100 times? And besides that don't some decisions seem off? Like Messi dribbling to the byline and whipping in a cross with his teammates in acres of space in the middle. Or being unable to find each other for simple pullbacks while being completely wide open. It just seems like regardless of the situation this shouldn't be the case for a team of Barcelona's calibre. 

[Warhawk]

2 minutes ago, Dagenham_Dave said:

People love making up names for FM like 'Morale Manager' and 'Crossing Manager' - This year, it should be called 'Extra Click Manager' - Although it's not really that snappy. 

Menu Manager?  Labyrinth Manager?

This is really the biggest issue I have as well, not being able to dynamically change search criteria while viewing the list.

[puffascruffowitz]

5 minutes ago, Dagenham_Dave said:

People love making up names for FM like 'Morale Manager' and 'Crossing Manager' - This year, it should be called 'Extra Click Manager' - Although it's not really that snappy. 

They should give you a wrist brace for carpal tunnel if you pre-order! 

[ajsr1982]

3 minutes ago, Cap'nRad said:

Alright, I understand the lack of changes this close to release, however wouldn't you agree that an attack force of messi, suarez, iniesta, rakitic, dembele, and busquets should be scoring 100 out of 100 times? And besides that don't some decisions seem off? Like Messi dribbling to the byline and whipping in a cross with his teammates in acres of space in the middle. Or being unable to find each other for simple pullbacks while being completely wide open. It just seems like regardless of the situation this shouldn't be the case for a team of Barcelona's calibre. 

It's a model, or a simulation. That means it gets calibrated for the most likely situations (ie, the stuff that matters). Sure that means you may get some odd behaviour as you stress it with extreme scenarios but it's impossible to get everything right and this seems like a third or fourth order issue.

[RobertPage]

Only two games in but heres two things that bother me at the moment. Data Analasist camera: Cant see the ball properly. I play with the speed slightly higher but from the height it's difficult to track the ball (Playing in white may also be why this is happening.

Secondly, something which is bugging me a lot more are the highlights. I played my first game on extended highlights but didn't get to see much build up so i can really judge my tactics and work out what may need to be changed. Second game i changed to comprehensive and although i get more highlights, i'm not really seeing more football. there needs to be a way for me to be able to see more of the build up rather than more of the pointless highlights which don't really help with tactics. I don't have the time to watch full matches so this is really important

[Dagenham_Dave]

Can someone confirm whether this is a bug or just a new design? 

My team are playing away to Queens Park in the Group stages of the League Cup on Wednesday. Today, QP played away at Hamilton, so I clicked on the match to view some highlights to have a quick look at how they play. In previous FM's you'd get the drop down menu to select to view goals or highlights etc, but I can't see it anywhere on this screen. If I click on the minutes the player scores, it takes me to the highlight of the goal, but how do I view general highlights from this screen?

 

[Cougar2010]

Click pitch on the top left and then use the bar to select the part of the match you want to see or use the controls to show the highlights at whatever level you want to select?

[Dagenham_Dave]

2 minutes ago, Cougar2010 said:

Click pitch on the top left and then use the bar to select the part of the match you want to see or use the controls to show the highlights at whatever level you want to select?

I see that now, seems a waste of a screen, unsure why there's not just a dropdown as there was before. 

[ajsr1982]

Any feedback on milestones in the post-match menu? They seem to have been hidden or removed.

[Neil Dejyothin]

6 minutes ago, Dagenham_Dave said:

Can someone confirm whether this is a bug or just a new design? 

My team are playing away to Queens Park in the Group stages of the League Cup on Wednesday. Today, QP played away at Hamilton, so I clicked on the match to view some highlights to have a quick look at how they play. In previous FM's you'd get the drop down menu to select to view goals or highlights etc, but I can't see it anywhere on this screen. If I click on the minutes the player scores, it takes me to the highlight of the goal, but how do I view general highlights from this screen?

 

Select the "Pitch" tab (top left) and then you'll see a list of options (on the right) to choose.

[Svenc]

20 minutes ago, Cap'nRad said:

Did the actions seem similar in this video to your previous tests?

Individually on the occasion. However it's tough to compare as my experiments mostly involved a "back line" consisting of a single full back. Here it seems two centre backs, plus all the other guys pushed up into the AMC strata and beyond, also told to man mark opposition players so that they wouldn't track back on defending. I agree that the above certainly looks slightly suspicious, to say the least. Whilst SI may never test their AI player decision makings under such scenarios, this may still explain some why from "gut feeling" counter attacks etc. in this still on occasion seem somewhat toothless. (Historically, it is widely acknowledged AFAIK by most that they were fairly poor -- only in more recent iterations tactics that hugely push players up in numbers are getting "burnt" some imo). The pkm is definitely something to provide to SI.

Edited October 27, 2017 by Svenc

[fm2020.smith]

the main glitch which ill report seems to be with strikers, they dont seem to get many chances. they are moving ok but no one is finding them with any passes. i was just wandering if anyone else was having any trouble with their strikers 

[Seb Wassell]

4 hours ago, Dagenham_Dave said:

I love the new risk assessment thing in the medical section, but I would have liked to have some sort of marker linking this in the tactics screen. For example, I'm still in pre-season, and I've got around six players at high risk due to match fatigue. When I'm picking the team on the tactics screen, there's no reference to this (that I can see) other than the usual condition/sharpness indicator. Would be good if there was some sort of icon or graphic linking the two to make it easier to try and avoid injuries. 

This is there. You can customise the view on the Tactics page to show Risk, Training Load, Match Load and Injury Susceptibility.

[luka_zg]

So this pre game chat with your team about tactics..Really you need to go ove every TI with the squad. Like "guys ,today we play control" reaction "nobody cares."

Same reaction for everything I've said. lol

I think this is one feature I will never use again. Don't see the point at all.

[sergif]

4 hours ago, Neil Dejyothin said:

Regarding stadiums, we do not have the license to make stadiums appear like they do in real life. What we have is a broad set of assets that we have to generically distribute across all of the teams, which is the same as previous versions except we had less variety in the style and designs.

In the future, we will likely expand on the new set that has been created for further variation.

I'm a huge fan of Football Manager since CM1 and I'm pleased with SI work. Congratulations.

However year after year I get disappointed because everything tends to be real except stadiums. For me there is no day experience without feeling that I'm in the real stadiums.

I know SI don't have licences and I don't need fifa appearence but I would lexpect to see the main details of stadiums inside and outside appearence.

 Maybe I'm the only one with this request.......

When it happens I will pay any amount for the game.

 

Edited October 27, 2017 by sergif

[Dagenham_Dave]

2 minutes ago, Neil Dejyothin said:

Select the "Pitch" tab (top left) and then you'll see a list of options (on the right) to choose.

Yes, Cougar said that. 

I've noticed though, once you've watched the highlights and gone back to the line up view, if you click on pitch to watch them again, the options have disappeared. You need to come right out, and click on the game result again to get them back. 

[Guest El Payaso]

Seems highly polished game and am super excited about playing FM again. A little bit lost with all the screens again but will get there eventually. 

The only gripes I have are that you cannot use the split screen anymore with the ME and you are forced to watch the full pitch which I do not enjoy at all. And the second and a major gripe is the strikers' defensive positioning which for me ruins the ME experience especially when you play with something like 4-4-2 and you have two players high up the pitch doing nothing. I would wish that they would finally see the problems in this and would change it as it is a really bad flaw. And no I don't want to set specific marking for them and the AI is not going to be doing that either.

[Neil Dejyothin]

1 minute ago, sergif said:

I'm a huge fan of Football Manager since CM1 and I'm pleased with SI work. Congratulations.

However year after year I get disappointed because everything tends to be real except stadiums. For me there is no day experience without feeling that I'm in the real stadiums.

I know SI don't have licences and I don't need fifa appearence but I would lexpect to see the main details of stadiums architecture.

 Maybe I'm the only one with this request.......

 

Can you elaborate what you mean about the "main details of stadiums architecture"? I may be mistaken, but I think you mean reflecting some of the characteristics of real stadiums, which if is the case, we are not legally allowed to because we don't have the license to do so.

The stadiums we have created for FM 18 do carry a fair bit more "detail" in them than the previous ones, considerably so actually.

[ajsr1982]

2 minutes ago, luka_ said:

So this pre game chat with your team about tactics..Really you need to go ove every TI with the squad. Like "guys ,today we play control" reaction "nobody cares."

Same reaction for everything I've said. lol

I think this is one feature I will never use again. Don't see the point at all.

I'm of the same opinion. I think you use this or the tactics screen, but using both seems redundant at this point.

The only thing I see it being useful for is adding in instructions on a one-off basis. For example, you might want to tell the team to be more disciplined against certain opposition, without doing it in the tactics screen and then having to undo it next time. I think that's how it works, anyway.

I'm speculating, but I guess it might also help build relationships with players. Maybe someone could confirm.

 

[Dagenham_Dave]

Just now, Neil Dejyothin said:

Can you elaborate what you mean about the "main details of stadiums architecture"? I may be mistaken, but I think you mean reflecting some of the characteristics of real stadiums, which if is the case, we are not legally allowed to because we don't have the license to do so.

 

I think he probably means if a stadium in real life is filled all the way round, it shouldn't be represented in game as having four separate stands. As I've mentioned before, the team I support in real life who I'm managing just now has a very simple design of two 1-tiered stands down both sides of the pitch and uncovered terracing at either end. I fail to see how licencing can stop you from at least getting the basic layout of a stadium correct without using any 'specific' architecture. 

[Viking]

How do I make the game go direct to Advanced Setup when I start a new career? 

[PHITSO]

1 hour ago, McClane29 said:

This is what I feel too.

Can we raise this in the bugs forum if it is not technically a bug?

there should AT LEAST be the option to change font/turn capital letters off. It’s so irritating.

[Totalfootballfan]

22 minutes ago, Neil Brock said:

Potentially he's had 100 chances there and shown us the 10 out of all of them that he missed. We'd really need a pkm and realistic game-worthy examples to look into this further and then potentially we could make changes. Thanks. 

 

Neil, please… you know me for a long time… I would never done something like that because I understand that something like that would be very unfair to the ME and very misleading.

I made the simulation for 45min (the 1st half) and simply cut all other stuff expect the attacks, I didn’t save the PKM of the match because I wasn’t planning to report as a bug or something like that, I made it just for fun.

Would you allow me to prove my fairness and would you allow to make more videos like that to post them but all of them will be backed up with PKMs?

[Neil Brock]

Just now, Totalfootballfan said:

 

Neil, please… you know me for a long time… I would never done something like that because I understand that something like that would be very unfair to the ME and very misleading.

I made the simulation for 45min (the 1st half) and simply cut all other stuff expect the attacks, I didn’t save the PKM of the match because I wasn’t planning to report as a bug or something like that, I made it just for fun.

Would you allow me to prove my fairness and would you allow to make more videos like that to post them but all of them will be backed up with PKMs?

No, just please raise anything you think is an issue in the match engine forum so our team can investigate. We'd prefer you do so with legitimate realistic game simulations where possible.

Thanks. 

[Riz Remes]

15 minutes ago, luka_ said:

So this pre game chat with your team about tactics..Really you need to go ove every TI with the squad. Like "guys ,today we play control" reaction "nobody cares."

Same reaction for everything I've said. lol

I think this is one feature I will never use again. Don't see the point at all.

No, you don't need to go through everything in your tactics. The pre-match tactical briefing is there to allow you to emphasise certain areas of the tactics to your squad based on what you think are the most important aspects for the upcoming match and to explain why you want to go with the given tactical options.

The areas you emphasise will be affected differently in the next match depending on the player, their reaction to the emphasis and the related tactical aspects.

Usually most managers keep the meeting short, only emphasising a few key things about the match tactics. As you can see if you let your assistant handle this.

[Neil Dejyothin]

7 minutes ago, Dagenham_Dave said:

I think he probably means if a stadium in real life is filled all the way round, it shouldn't be represented in game as having four separate stands. As I've mentioned before, the team I support in real life who I'm managing just now has a very simple design of two 1-tiered stands down both sides of the pitch and uncovered terracing at either end. I fail to see how licencing can stop you from at least getting the basic layout of a stadium correct without using any 'specific' architecture. 

This may be a bug or a data issue, please report it in the relevant area.

[inacion]

1 hour ago, Smurf said:

 

Haven't got access to the Beta - but following this thread with great interest.

Is it really going to take 4-5 hours to get through pre-season? Really take 95 minutes to get to first match???

What is going on that it takes this long?

I normally get through about 3 seasons in FM12 in about 4 hours. 

 

 

 

• Assign staff responsabilities
• Check team report and identify strenghts and weaknesses
• Checking B team
• Checking youth team, offer professional contracts to players with good potentital
• Build tactics, select roles, players, etc
• Identify what kind of players I need depth
• Search for possible transfer targets, assign scouts
• Evaluate loan proposals for my youth players and consider if I have place for them on my squad
• Evaluate proposals for first team players and analyse if I already have someone capable of replacing those players or if I have to go to market

When I arrive to a new team there are many things to do before move forward until next match. I assign to director of football and youth coordinator the responsability of hiring staff, otherwise I would take even more time.

I'm playing Benfica, big club. When you manage a big club there's many more things to do than on a small club.

That was my 95 minutes

Edited October 27, 2017 by inacion

[Ragin Cajun]

So diving in to FM18 beta last night (yeah, the music in the intro got my video banned..lol, couldn't turn it off beforehand).

Anyway, some small changes that will be something to get used to like the match day screen (not able to pop out to the home page to check stuff out).

Biggest issue in the first few days is the difficulty in setting friendlies.  You've changed the entire setup procedure.  Instead of having "larger clubs", "similar" and "smaller" now it's just a list by reputation.  And you have no way of sorting or filtering by distance or anything else.  I've tried 20 teams and all of them either (a) said it was too far or (b) never gave me a confirm option, just an undo or cancel option...which I am interpreting as "don't waste our time".  So literally, about 30 minutes and I've been unable to schedule a single friendly match. 

[Ultimoroger]

Quick question. Has the option to ask for a quick scout report card (i.e. receive it the next day) been removed? The minimum time is now 1 week.

I just want to make sure I'm not missing it, thank you.

[sergif]

14 minutes ago, Neil Dejyothin said:

Can you elaborate what you mean about the "main details of stadiums architecture"? I may be mistaken, but I think you mean reflecting some of the characteristics of real stadiums, which if is the case, we are not legally allowed to because we don't have the license to do so.

The stadiums we have created for FM 18 do carry a fair bit more "detail" in them than the previous ones, considerably so actually.

Yes, that´s it. It's a shame you don´t have licenses do to that.

Isn´t it possible in the future? I would love to go on each stadium and feel that I'm really there. That would be perfect.

[Viking]

Sooo... Why can I no longer see if a club have debts before I take over it? In FM 17, you could see the club value and if there was any debts under the Overview -> General tab. That is now removed. Or has it just been moved to somewhere else and I am an idiot?   

[inacion]

8 minutes ago, Ultimoroger said:

Quick question. Has the option to ask for a quick scout report card (i.e. receive it the next day) been removed? The minimum time is now 1 week.

I just want to make sure I'm not missing it, thank you.

In real world if you request a scout report, he won't be ready next day, some time is needed. 1 week seems a resonable minimum time to adquire some player knowlegde

[Time_Consumer]

6 hours ago, Altair said:

I don't understand some player ratings this year. I mean Mbappé has CA and O. Dembelé wtf.  Marcos Llorente Real Madrid DM only has  PA and Achraf  in CA when he is actually better right now. This database looks like from last year.

Could you please not casually post CA/PA in here? It's really annoying. Thanks!

On topic:

It's a beta, it looks and feels like a beta. I'm very good with all additions and multiple new approaches, just hoping that the final product is more polished from a technical point of view.  

Edited October 27, 2017 by michaeltmurrayuk
removed ca/pa values

[Per Annum]

1 minute ago, inacion said:

In real world if you request a scout report, he won't be ready next day, some time is needed. 1 week seems a resonable minimum time to adquire some player knowlegde

I agree but totally irrelevant to his question. (although a top scout would have a database of views on top players surely, would only be if it was totally new it would take some time).