[FM21] Diamonds are a girls best friend.

[Jimbokav1971]

This is going to be played in the style of the @dafuge challenge, but I won't be posting in the other forum. The premise is basically that you go on holiday for a season and then take over 1 of the newly promoted clubs and then take over the footballing World. The @dafugethread can be found here. 

I will also be playing #YouthOnly which means that I will only be signing players that have previously come through our Academy, (or been poached from our Academy), The Youth Academy Challenge thread can be found here, (although I won't be updating in that thread). 

Last year using FM20, I took over a little club local to me Irchester Utd at Tier 10, and took them to the Premier League, using only the players promoted from our Academy. 

I've been holidaying and holidaying and holidaying some more, but I can't seem to get the club promoted that I want to use, and although someone else has a save with them, the database isn't set up in the way I want it. 

I remember back in the day that the way to ensure a team was promoted was to go into the editor, boost the reputation of the club that you want to see promoted, holiday until the promotion date, confirm that they have actually been promoted and then revert their reputation back to to it's original value. 

I'm a Barnet FC fan, but I don't live in North London anymore and when I can't get back to see Barnet, I try to go and watch AFC Rushden & Diamonds. That's who I want to play with. 

I also want to see Wingate & Finchley promoted.

Peterborough Sports are relatively close to where I am now. 

I used to work in Potters Bar for a while so I would like to see them promoted. 

Corinthian Casuals have a special place in my heart after their link with Corinthians. 

So that's 5 clubs I want to promoted. 1st I need to know their existing reputation values and luckily they are posted in the @dafugethread. 

I will hide them here though because I know that not everyone wants to see data that would usually be hidden by the game.

Spoiler

I'm going to increase their reputation to 3,000 each, (which will hopefully see them all promoted).

These are the clubs that were actually promoted, (so I was successful with promoting 4 out of the 5 clubs). 

Corinthian Casuals have missed out and that's basically tough.

Now I have to revert the reputations of the 5 previously mentioned clubs to their original values. [Done] 

[Gundo]

Good luck, Jimbo. I’ll be following your progress. 

[Jimbokav1971]

Manager profile. 

I've had a few "Sons in the game" in FM, but not had one for a while now. They have all been rubbish of course, but it's something that really adds to a game. 

Something that was mentioned by @smp20 in the #DanskeDanske thread, (below), made me take notice though. 

He, (or she to be more accurate), managed to get a Son in the Game in his/her very 1st Youth Intake.  (Halfway down page 5 for those who are interested). (Just for the record, I think @smp20is male in real life, but is playing with a female character). I don't know if anyone else picked up on this but I found it astonishing that he selects a female character and immediately gets a Son in the Game. I need to be a woman!!! 

Allow me to introduce Jimbina O'Kav. 

Something that I have considered is that as many of you know, I'm an old git in real life. I won't tell you my age, but it's fair to say I'm old. I wonder if my age has hindered me having a Son in the Game in recent years, (because everyone knows that a woman's body-clock is always ticking). So with that in mind I've decided to edit my age as the very youngest possible. 

Yes she's a woman, but she's a woman with no coaching badges and only Sunday league reputation. 

[Jimbokav1971]

Disaster or opportunity?

I must have forgotten to tick, (add players/staff to playable teams), because this is all I have available. 

There is no Ability/Potential info so I obviously don't have an Ass Man, but more importantly I don't have a single striker at the club. 

Damn! 

As 1 door closes though, another 1 opens. 

My saves tend to often be about me learning things along the way, and I have already had a few "discussions" with people on how Youth Intakes work. I'm tempted to use this opportunity, (and the Editor), to do some research and see exactly how Youth Intakes work in FM21.

At the same time I will sort out the save and get to the point again where I can start to play. 

[Maw74]

Good luck Jimbina 

[-Jef-]

I have a suspicion that your username gives a hint of your age  Good luck Mrs.O'Kav. 

 

Re:youth intakes, I have a theory that all changes to youth facilities/coaches/etc take up to 4 years to influence the actual intake. Would be interested to see if you can maybe see if it is actually true.

Edited November 26, 2020 by rosque

[Carambau]

Jimbina 

[Jimbokav1971]

2 minutes ago, rosque said:

I have a suspicion that your username gives a hint of your age  Good luck Mrs.O'Kav. 

Re:youth intakes, I have a theory that all changes to youth facilities/coaches/etc take up to 4 years to influence the actual intake. Would be interested to see if you can maybe see if it is actually true.

I couldn't possibly comment on the significance of my username, (but I'm not 71 yet), and it's Ms O'Kav don't you know! 

That's a really good comment about the immediacy of the impact of upgrades. I plan on doing lots of "investigation" alongside actually playing the game in this thread so I'm sure we will fined out at some point. 

[Jimbokav1971]

3 hours ago, Gundo said:

Good luck, Jimbo. I’ll be following your progress. 

 

2 hours ago, Maw74 said:

Good luck Jimbina 

 

2 minutes ago, Carambau said:

Jimbina 

Cheers lads. 

[DazRTaylor]

All the best.  Sorry my file didn't work.

[Rikulec]

Best of luck mate, will be following.

[karanhsingh]

Good luck, I may try the female manager thing as well!

Did you pause the Danish save?

[Jimbokav1971]

1 hour ago, DazRTaylor said:

All the best.  Sorry my file didn't work.

It wasn't that it didn't work and more that it wasn't quite suitable for what I have planned. 

Thanks anyway. 

[Jimbokav1971]

55 minutes ago, Rikulec said:

Best of luck mate, will be following.

Thanks very much. I have lots of ideas to pursue alongside just the normal save. 

[Jimbokav1971]

31 minutes ago, karanhsingh said:

Good luck, I may try the female manager thing as well!

Did you pause the Danish save?

I had decided that I would stick with it, but then I realised I had played half a season, not done very well and I just wasn't putting even a basic effort in so it was time to get a proper save. 

[Jimbokav1971]

I made quite a long and detailed post last night and as I pressed submit I lost internet connection. 

I still have the pictures so will try and recreate it from that. 

What do we know about Youth Intakes and what do we think we know.

 

It's important to remember that FM21 is a new game and as much as we all think we all knew how FM20 worked, (we didn't), we don't yet know how FM21 is different to FM20. 

Let's start off with a really basic question. 

What happens if you don't have a HoYD, and you also don't have a DoF or an Ass Man? 

I'm managing AFC Rushden & Diamonds, who have been promoted from non-playable after holidaying the 1st season. 

I don't have any staff. It's just me and the Chairman. 

The truth is I don't actually know, but like I said, this is a different game and part of the reason I'm starting here is because when I ran through the 1st season on holiday mode, we didn't get a Youth Intake Preview. 

Let's not jump to conclusions though. The reason we aren't getting a preview is because we don't have any staff able to actually provide us with the preview, (which is a relatively new feature in FM). Certainly in the past you used to get a Youth Intake just so long as you had both Junior Coaching and Youth Recruitment at level 1. (This is what Brentford's Facilities look like, who have completely done away with their Academy and instead operate a B-Team system).

The Youth Level shows as 0, which is not at all the same as having no Academy. Youth Level is effectively the Academy Level in the game, which is used to replicate the EPPP system that is used for finances, including but not limited to compensation, when players under the age of 24 move clubs where no fee is agreed. 

It actually shows as a minus figure in the Editor. 

The Facilities at AFCR&D are as follows. They include a Youth Level of 0, (which indicates that their Academy does not have "Academy" status), so do not benefit from EPPP which seems ridiculously in favour if the bigger teams. 

So although we don't have a HoYD at the club, or an Ass Man for that matter, and we didn't get a Youth Intake Preview, we do actually get a Youth Intake though, (although the info is very limited because we also don't have an Ass Man. This could be a significant cost-saving to some of those with poor facilities who decide not to have a HoYD at all and save on staff wages. 

Apologies that I got to this report late and the Youth Intake candidates are mixed with the U19 grey players, but it at least gives us an indication of PA.

@rosquemade a brilliant comment earlier in this thread. 

I've often thought this and like to explain it in these terms. 

HoYD1 is employed at any club. Let's use Barnet FC, as an example. He has been at the club for quite a few years and has personally been responsible for every player recruited to the following groups. U16's, U15's, U14's, U13's, U12's & U11's.

Barnet are performing poorly in the league, (as in real life), the manager has been sacked and the new Manager has decided that he's going to bring in his own HoYD, (who we will call HoYD2). 

At the next intake, the U16's will be the group to come through the Intake and despite the fact that HoYD2 is now at the club, he has only known these players for a few days/weels/months, and HoYD1 has been helping them develop for at least 5 years. These players should be influenced by HoYD1 rather than HoYD2. It should then work in the same way, (but on a sliding and decreasing scale), down to the U11's Group who will spend the most time with HoYD2. 

While I believe that this is how it should work, unfortunately I don't believe that this has been replicated accurately in the game, (but more on that later in the thread because at this stage this is what I think, which is very different to what I know). 

So we've done a Youth Intake with a Chairman and we know how that works. Let's do one with an Ass Man too. 

Our Ass Man is able to provide us with an Intake Preview. 

This gives us a basic indication of what we can expect moving forward, but the next question I want to ask is.....

Is the Youth Intake set in stone from the date of the Intake, or are there still variables that can change? 

Ok, well straight away let's go back 1 day, re-load and then run the intake again, (from the same Intake Preview). 

There are some things that have remained the same, but there are other areas that have changed. 

I'll tell you what, just to make double-sure let's go back 1 day and re-load again and run a 3rd intake just to give us 3 intakes from 1 preview to compare. 

So ignoring what we think we know, and concentrating only on what this proves, what do we actually know about FM21 Youth Intakes relative to Intake Previews? 

What doesn't change.

• Player names
• Player personal info, (such as date and place of birth). 
• Positions.
• Best Positions. 
• Age.
• Nationality.

What does change. 

• Best Role.
• Preferred Foot. 
• CA.
• PA.
• 2nd Nationality. (Paul Muir has IRL as a 2nd Nationality in the 1st 2 intakes but none at all in the 3rd). 
• All Attributes. 
• Personalities, (because attributes obviously change). 

I think that height/weight change, (because I'm pretty sure that they changed in FM20), but as I'm trying to separate what I know from what I think, I have not included it on the above list. 

Edited November 27, 2020 by Jimbokav1971

[Jimbokav1971]

Meet the initial squad. Jun 2021. 

Looking at this squad makes me think of the #Regensberg debacle. 

In the holiday save I ran through, we got relegated by Ashanti Pryce scored a LOT of goals. I would like to think that I can influence things enough to avoid relegation, but it's FAR from guaranteed. 

I'm going to continue to use my FM20 442 tactic, and the other thing I would mention from the holiday save is that I should expect LOTS of cards, (both yellow and red). 

I'm not going to show you Ashanti Pryce unless/until he continues his goal-scoring prowess, but what jumps out at me from this squad is a lack of central midfielders, (there are none), and only 1 striker in a 2-striker system. 

1 option would be to sign grey players, (and I can't remember if that's allowed in the Youth Challenge so please don't assume it is), so I'm not going to sign grey players I don't think. 

The other option is to sign players who have already come through our Academy and moved on, but despite the fact that I know there are some, none of them appear on my scouting player search. 

[abulezz]

Awesome and very informative post. 

[Jimbokav1971]

Youth Intake 1. Dec 2021. 

(22a) Tom Hill.

Squad by CA. 

Squad by PA. 

[Jimbokav1971]

10 hours ago, abulezz said:

Awesome and very informative post. 

Thanks very much. I'm really just trying to dissect everything Youth Intake based as I go 

[Jimbokav1971]

Youth Intake 1 comparisons. Apr 2022. 

There has been some discussion with regards to the impact of the various Facilities in the game and there is also a difference between how SI say the game should work and how I personally think it actually works. Opinions are like arseholes though, (everyone's got one), so my plan is to move away from thoughts and opinion and more into evidence based fact, (or at least evidence founded opinion). 

SI have suggested that CA and PA is influenced equally by Training Facilities, Youth Facilities, Junior Coaching and Youth Recruitment, and although I'm not really sure about FM21, (I have only seen 13 intakes so far), I am absolutely positive that it wasn't the case in FM20. People believe SI when they say things, and I think we should trust them because they are the people that make the game, trust them at least until the evidence suggests otherwise. 

The idea of doing things like this now is that the extra knowledge I gain shouldn't make too much difference because of the stage of the save we're at and how rubbish our facilities are. (They are so rubbish that we shouldn't be producing any decent players).

Before I do this though, I want to point out that comparing single intakes is a ridiculously small sample size, so while it should be ok to use as an indication, nothing here is in any way concrete. 

Real Intake, (with real facilities). Top CA is 24. Top PA is 48. 

Intake 2, (with maxed out Training Facilities). Top CA is 28(+4). Top PA is 71(+23). 

Intake 3, (with maxed out Youth Facilities). Top CA is 32(+8). Top PA is 78(+30).

Intake 4, (with maxed out Junior Coaching). Top CA is 53(+29). Top PA is 111(+63).

Intake 5, (with maxed out Youth Recruitment). Top CA is 28(+4). Top PA is 58(+10).

Intake 6, (with reputation increased to 9162 the same as the Liverpool who are the top rep team in England). Top CA is 45(+21). Top PA is 71 (+24). 

Intake 7, (with my Ass Man attributes all increased to 20 and his reputation increased to 8020 from 800). Top CA is 24(+0). Top PA is 61(+13)

I tried to edit his personal knowledge, but I couldn't work out how to do it. 

Real Intake, (with real facilities). Top CA is 24. Top PA is 48. 
Intake 2, (with maxed out Training Facilities). Top CA is 28(+4). Top PA is 71(+23). 
Intake 3, (with maxed out Youth Facilities). Top CA is 32(+8). Top PA is 78(+30).
Intake 4, (with maxed out Junior Coaching). Top CA is 53(+29). Top PA is 111(+63).
Intake 5, (with maxed out Youth Recruitment). Top CA is 28(+4). Top PA is 58(+10).
Intake 6, (with club reputation increased to 9162). Top CA is 45(+21). Top PA is 71 (+24). 
Intake 7, (with my Ass Man attributes all increased to 20 and his reputation increased to 8020 from 800). Top CA is 24(+0). Top PA is 61(+13)

I would like to point out again that this is an absolutely tiny sample so things we take from this should be indications rather than hard and fast concrete evidence. 

The biggest increase in anything is Junior Coaching, but there might just have been some surprises to some of you along the way. I would particularly like to highlight the increase in club reputation because that might have neem a surprise to some. 

Edited November 28, 2020 by Jimbokav1971

[Jimbokav1971]

Season summary. May 2022.

Vanarama North. 

FA Cup.

FA Trophy.  

Records. 

Finances. 

[-Jef-]

8 hours ago, Jimbokav1971 said:

Youth Intake 1 comparisons. Apr 2022. 

--snip--

Think this suggests that they indeed contribute to both CA and PA (on a more or less 2:1 scale PA:CA meaning for every +2 increase in PA they increase +1 CA) but JC has the highest impact. This also, kinda, suggest that my assumption that upgrades take up to 4 years a bit incorrect. But this is something that should be done in multiple years and looking forward to seeing what you find out.

[_Ben_]

12 hours ago, Jimbokav1971 said:

Real Intake, (with real facilities). Top CA is 24. Top PA is 48. 
Intake 2, (with maxed out Training Facilities). Top CA is 28(+4). Top PA is 71(+23). 
Intake 3, (with maxed out Youth Facilities). Top CA is 32(+8). Top PA is 78(+30).
Intake 4, (with maxed out Junior Coaching). Top CA is 53(+29). Top PA is 111(+63).
Intake 5, (with maxed out Youth Recruitment). Top CA is 28(+4). Top PA is 58(+10).
Intake 6, (with club reputation increased to 9162). Top CA is 45(+21). Top PA is 71 (+24). 
Intake 7, (with my Ass Man attributes all increased to 20 and his reputation increased to 8020 from 800). Top CA is 24(+0). Top PA is 61(+13)

I think this is kind of what we wanted to hear? Spending money coaching the kids age groups should result in them being 'better' when they reach this level?

---

Well done on staying up first season! I know how much of a drag it can be...

[Jimbokav1971]

3 hours ago, rosque said:

Think this suggests that they indeed contribute to both CA and PA (on a more or less 2:1 scale PA:CA meaning for every +2 increase in PA they increase +1 CA) but JC has the highest impact. This also, kinda, suggest that my assumption that upgrades take up to 4 years a bit incorrect. But this is something that should be done in multiple years and looking forward to seeing what you find out.

I think the scale can be debated, but what can't really debated is that it is NOT TRUE that each Facility/area contributes EQUALLY to both CA and PA. Some facilities/areas are more effective than others, and indeed club reputation is more important than most of the others. 

@_Ben_recently asked the question in his FM21 thread.

He was talking about an initial upgrade rather than a L20 upgrade, but the principle remains the same. 

Junior Coaching and Youth Recruitment are both significantly cheaper than Youth Facilities and Training Facilities, and from this initial basic test would seem to be more productive too. In terms of a choice between Junior Coaching and Youth Recruitment, my choice has always been and remains Junior Coaching. 

@rosquemade a really good point later in the conversation..... that I didn't agree with at the time. 

I answered that while they did all influence both CA and PA, they didn't influence them equally, (either in terms of in comparison to other upgrades, but also with CA compared to PA). 

I also said this.....

What I meant by this, (although I didn't specifically say it), is that I expected some facilities/areas to increase PA more than CA and vice versa. 

I expected Junior Coaching to improve CA more than PA, (and it does, at least according to this really basic experiment). 

I expected Youth Recruitment to improve PA more than CA, (and it does, at least according to this really basic experiment).

SI have told us for a while now that this is NOT the case, and I haven't believed them for a while. I'm not going to get too bogged down in this tiny little experiment and I'm in no way forcing my views on anyone. Just have a look at the really basic experiment above and make up your own mind about the answers it suggests to the questions we all have. 

Especially in a game like this where SI try to keep the inner workings of the game hidden, there are no right and wrong ideas really, but like I said earlier, you need evidence to back your point of opinion up to make it become more valid and I would like to think I've done that. 

The conversation can be found here, in the bottom half of Page 4 and the whole thread is well worth a read. @_Ben_often goes off on really interesting tangents in his his thread. 

 

Edited November 28, 2020 by Jimbokav1971

[-Jef-]

I think you might have misunderstood me (cursed be my second language  ). I said that all of those things contribute to both CA and PA and not that YA, JC, YF all contribute equally. Hopefully this makes it clearer.  

Anyway, my intention was not to derail the topic.

Edited November 28, 2020 by rosque

[Jimbokav1971]

14 minutes ago, rosque said:

I think you might have misunderstood me (cursed be my second language  ). I said that all of those things contribute to both CA and PA and not that YA, JC, YF all contribute equally. Hopefully this makes it clearer.  

Your language is fine. 

I was more disagreeing with the SI information that we have all been relying on rather than anything you said particularly. 

There is nothing "equal" about this area and the only area that seems to have a like for like increase is reputation, which is probably what we would have expected I think. 

[Edit] 

I promise you @rosquethere is no way to derail my thread. They are full of all sorts of nonsense. Everything is good. 

 

Edited November 28, 2020 by Jimbokav1971

[endtime]

On 26/11/2020 at 11:16, Jimbokav1971 said:

 

I wonder if my age has hindered me having a Son in the Game in recent years, (because everyone knows that a woman's body-clock is always ticking). So with that in mind I've decided to edit my age as the very youngest possible. 

 

I read somewhere that you won't get a son before your manager turns 35, so you've set yourself up for a long haul here

[Jimbokav1971]

3 minutes ago, endtime said:

I read somewhere that you won't get a son before your manager turns 35, so you've set yourself up for a long haul here

The length of my saves tend to not be a problem and I should have decent facilities by that time too. 2035 here I come! 

[Jimbokav1971]

44 minutes ago, _Ben_ said:

I think this is kind of what we wanted to hear? Spending money coaching the kids age groups should result in them being 'better' when they reach this level?

---

Well done on staying up first season! I know how much of a drag it can be...

Yeah. There weren't any huge surprises here. Quite how much the club reputation increases improved things surprised me a little, but when you consider that's a L20 upgrade then maybe it shouldn't have. I was also a little surprised that Youth Facilities increased CA so little if I'm honest. 

As for staying up, I deserve absolutely no credit. The whole basis of my tactical insight was "give the ball to Ashanti". I then let them get on with it. We were awful most of the season and collected cards of both colour like they were going out of fashion. 

[_Ben_]

21 minutes ago, Jimbokav1971 said:

As for staying up, I deserve absolutely no credit. The whole basis of my tactical insight was "give the ball to Ashanti". I then let them get on with it. We were awful most of the season and collected cards of both colour like they were going out of fashion. 

I'm in my 7th non-league season now and I too admit that it's dull! You get a good player and rely on him to do what he does best. There's minimal progress with your players and your youth players are generally terrible.

[Jimbokav1971]

6 minutes ago, _Ben_ said:

I'm in my 7th non-league season now and I too admit that it's dull! You get a good player and rely on him to do what he does best. There's minimal progress with your players and your youth players are generally terrible.

I hate the 1st season of saves and don't particularly enjoy 2nd or 3rd seasons either. Not because of the level, (although amateur contracts in Scandinavia seemed particularly hard work), but because the club doesn't feel like it's mine until about 4 or 5 seasons in. So far I'm literally just pressing continue. 

[Jimbokav1971]

 

[Jimbokav1971]

Youth Intake 2. Dec 2022. 

When I see a non-English player mentioned in the Preview I get excited. In my Irchester save last year, it was foreign players who were always the stars before we gained Academy Status. 

What a phenomenal intake!  In terms of Nationalities. 

(23a) Kaine Capes

(23g) Dawid Skiba (POL)

[Jimbokav1971]

I'm pretty frustrated with this issue of the game at the moment. I have reported lots of bugs and uploaded saves for most of them, but not a single bug that I have reported has been resolved. 

They haven't even changed the nicknames bug which is easy to fix, but I suppose they have other priorities. 

Nicknames, delegating just about anything, FGN players coming through the Youth Intake, XG analysis, competition rules, editing views, National Team player production lists... the list goes on. Admittedly many of these are "cosmetic", but they are quite important to me to get myself immersed in the save. I'm just not particularly feeling it at the moment. 

[Jimbokav1971]

Squad Dynamics. Apr 2023. 

This isn't ideal. We could do with a couple of Team leaders of any sort at all, but Morten Opsahl (AUS) (NOR) is a Leader personality and Dale Hoyte is a Pro personality. Either of those would be brilliant. 

[Jimbokav1971]

Drop to Semi-Pro. Apr 2023. 

I don't think I have ever had this happen to me before. 

Not that it makes much difference, but our scouting range has also been reduced. 

[Jimbokav1971]

Season 2 Summary. May 2023. 

Conference North. 

FA Cup. 

FA Trophy.

Squad by Appearances. 

Records. 

Finances. 

Best XI. 

Tracker. 

[deez0r]

Glad you have started another. I shall be starting my own soon! 

[Jimbokav1971]

9 minutes ago, deez0r said:

Glad you have started another. I shall be starting my own soon! 

I'm thinking of stopping playing at the moment. 

There are so many little bugs that it's affecting my enjoyment. I've reported loads and not a single 1 has been fixed. They haven't even bothered to fix the nicknames which I reported on day 1 of the demo. I can't delegate anything because it just doesn't get done. Just a bit fed up. 

[deez0r]

14 minutes ago, Jimbokav1971 said:

I'm thinking of stopping playing at the moment. 

There are so many little bugs that it's affecting my enjoyment. I've reported loads and not a single 1 has been fixed. They haven't even bothered to fix the nicknames which I reported on day 1 of the demo. I can't delegate anything because it just doesn't get done. Just a bit fed up. 

I haven't played as much as yourself. The nicknames thing is a really basic thing to miss. The delegations I haven't had an issue with yet. My save will be youth only so may start to see things annoy me more! 

[Jimbokav1971]

Just posted this in the feedback thread. 

My initial feedback was really positive and I think the match engine is great, but after a significant amount of playing I'm less impressed. 

I haven't encountered a single "game-breaking" bug, but I have encountered loads of little smaller bugs and despite reporting them, even the really simple basic ones, (such as nicknames having to be written from scratch rather than starting with the existing name or nickname as has been done for ages), still haven't been resolved. In fact, a lot of the bugs that I reported, and uploaded saves for, haven't even had a reply. I keep reporting and reporting, but to be honest I feel like I'm wasting my time. 

You can't delegate anything reliably to anyone, (for fear of it not being done), so unless you want to micro-manage every aspect of game-play, (I don't), then the game doesn't really work for me. 

I can't delegate to the Chairman to being in a DoF, (because he doesn't do it). 

When I manually bring in a DoF and delegate to him the hiring and firing and negotiation of staff contracts he doesn't do it. 

I start my 2nd season and lose the 1st 2 games because the Ass Man hasn't arranged any friendlies because he is no longer at the club because the DoF didn't bother to try and negotiate his contract and let him leave on a free and then didn't recruit a replacement after he left. 

I takeover responsibility for all individual training but although I can impact the additional focus for U18 squad players I can't impact on their PPM's. I could delegate that but nothing else that I delegate is getting done so the chances are this will also not get done. 

I can't delegate contract negotiations for players. 

You can't get a DoF to buy and sell players. 

The XG system might look great and sound great, but the numbers just don't add up. It's either completely made up or the incorrect values are being shown. 

It's strange. It seems like there has been a huge amount of attention placed on the ME, (and that's great), but the game is more than the match engine and the UI seems awful in comparison. 

There was an upgrade today that I have only just noticed and installed so will look again tomorrow, but really haven't enjoyed it over the last couple of days.

Finding and reporting bugs is great and while I appreciate that a lot of the stuff that is annoying me is deemed largely "cosmetic" and significantly less important than ME or game-breaking bugs, it's hard to keep coming back every day to report another bug when you know that absolutely nothing that you have reported has been fixed yet, (and yeah I know I probably need to show some more patience), but for the 1st time in ages this feels a little slap-dash. UI issues should be easier to fix than ME mixes and I understand that there are different teams operating on different areas like this, so I'm not really sure why there are so many UI issues which has historically been a strength. 

There needs to be some balance in improvement the ME and the UI making the game.... able to do what the game is meant to do. 

[Jimbokav1971]

14 minutes ago, deez0r said:

I haven't played as much as yourself. The nicknames thing is a really basic thing to miss. The delegations I haven't had an issue with yet. My save will be youth only so may start to see things annoy me more! 

Are you saying that you can delegate stuff and it gets done? 

[deez0r]

I only delegate things like media handling. Handle contracts and staff myself. I may have to do a tester for you!