FOOTBALL Football Manager series

Bevab

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Gone for it seeing as i have bought every one since 2012 according to my steam library so it was inevitable really.Nice first look on twitch/you tube.In theory the beta should drop some time on tuesday .Tbh i have never been too fussed about the match engine for me its ease of navigation around the stats my biggest bugbear is the scouts suggesting unsuitable players either too expensive or worse than what we have,I end up having to find the players myself, that and one negetive comment to the press or a player and the whole deck of cards comes down.

Aye the dynamics idea sounds good on paper but the execution still remains quite off given how limited you are in terms of interactions. We could talk to individual journalists about players and managers in the past, where has all of that gone when it would make so much sense in the current system?!

The recruitment system was supposed to be a big focus this time around with those 'meetings' where you get player suggestions, hopefully that cuts down on all of the unrealistic recommendations. Agree that the game has never been better off the field but for some reason I barely find myself watching in-game matches these days (instant result is a godsend!). Would be interested in hearing your thoughts on the new iteration as a much more polished FM20 version could honestly be a good thing too. :)
 

jabbathehut

County Cricketer
Joined
Feb 4, 2017
just had a quick bash i have a budget of 13mill(you will have the same budget as we support the same team) and every player offered was well above that.I know i can sell to get to the budget but i want the scouts to find the diamonds in the rough otherwise no point in them.Had a team meeting where i thought i clicked challenge for the title but maybe i clicked can win the title by mistake and every player was negative about it being unrealistic managed to calm them down in the end.Also seems that every youth player was being sent on loan So 3 hrs in still in pre season.The press conferences are a bit better with reactions from all the journos there.Also not clear where set opposition instructions is.However it is a lot slicker albeit a bit overwhelming it really is quite hardcore in a way but i am enjoying it and will be back tomorrow for more.
 

jabbathehut

County Cricketer
Joined
Feb 4, 2017
Just to add the new agent feature adds a new dimension trying to sell a player in last year of contract i get a message that the deal will be sabotaged unless I pay the agent 400k tried to negotiate but he wouldn't so I just left it won't be bullied like that lol
 

RunEm

School Cricketer
Joined
Jan 19, 2021
Yeah since they overhauled the scouting system I've never been able to enjoy it as much. I get it's more realistic but it's just not as engaging (for me personally), and it feels more tedious with a ton more clicks.

That being said the series is amazing and I've sunk an unthinkable amount hours in to these games.

Is 21 worth the upgrade? I've seen YT videos but just thought I'd ask here.
 

jabbathehut

County Cricketer
Joined
Feb 4, 2017
My view the beta was good but it got a bit broken when it was fully released the 30 shots on target and no goals and then the ai scoring with one shot returned.i played one season but haven't been motivated to go back from 3-0 up in cup final the opposition had a player sent off changed tactics to attack and within a blink of an eye it was 3-3 and lost on penalties. I venture to suggest that no team 3-0 down and then a player sent off have ever come back to 3-3 so yes its slick and there is lots of data I've been turned off it.You can read forums of si and steam etc to get an idea
 

JoeS31

Club Captain
Joined
Jul 14, 2013
Location
London
I've been playing a lot of FM Touch 21, really enjoying it. The full fat version of the game is all too much for me, Touch is a perfect streamlined version.
 

ddrap14

Shitposter in Chief
AUS..
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Got two strokes of good luck this year. First, won the game in a giveaway. Second, my favourite team QPR got a Russian tycoon. Took the job when the manager at the time was sacked and now look like we're going up!
 

Bevab

Staff Member
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Online Cricket Games Owned
  1. Don Bradman Cricket 14 - Steam PC
Looks like this is the year where there is finally some noise around how stagnant FM has become and how much SI are getting away with the lack of a competitor. Love to see it even if my hopes of the series actually changing directions is quite low due to Miles alone.
 

Till Valhalla

ICC Chairman
The Boys
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Jun 5, 2011
Profile Flag
Papua New Guinea
Looks like this is the year where there is finally some noise around how stagnant FM has become and how much SI are getting away with the lack of a competitor. Love to see it even if my hopes of the series actually changing directions is quite low due to Miles alone.
I think people overlook the underlying changes a lot like performance and memory while they try to introduce one big feature and few small one's.

I had FM 20 before and got 22 a month ago. 22 is running so smooth and fast on the same device.
I like the approach they are taking with Women's game. Hopefully it gets fully developed in soon.

I understand the frustration and would like to see some more changes but I think they are hindering themselves by yearly release but the licenses they have could sometimes decided the release schedule.
 

Bevab

Staff Member
Moderator
PlanetCricket Award Winner
Joined
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Online Cricket Games Owned
  1. Don Bradman Cricket 14 - Steam PC
I think people overlook the underlying changes a lot like performance and memory while they try to introduce one big feature and few small one's.

I had FM 20 before and got 22 a month ago. 22 is running so smooth and fast on the same device.
I like the approach they are taking with Women's game. Hopefully it gets fully developed in soon.

I understand the frustration and would like to see some more changes but I think they are hindering themselves by yearly release but the licenses they have could sometimes decided the release schedule.

This whole wall of text is unlikely to be read by anyone other than you, me, Jabba and maybe Waste but screw it, I’m going to listen to the inner child that wants to rant.

The biggest issue with SI is that they have become completely complacent in all facets of game development and marketing due to well, the lack of competition for one and possibly their bosses not leading them on the right direction. There is a paradox (remember the name for I shall repeat this studio’s name again in other contexts :spy) in their game design now where they’re unsure as to just what they want the game to be. Too much effort is being put into things that have been minimally asked for and too little into things that everyone has asked for in contrast. This all stems down to them having no pulse on what the buyers and fans are seeking from FM, which is to be a fairly realistic game simulation of the football world where they can build their narratives and entertain themselves with their fantasies. Even the ones who only play for 50-100 hours (the equivalent of one season or two) just want immersion for the most part.

Except this immersion has come at the cost of tedium in areas that many did not want to be expanded upon. Press conferences are the main bugbear here but there are a lot more. More clicks are required to do the same things that were possible in a simpler way in earlier iterations. This isn’t complexity or depth added for the sake of gameplay challenge or immersion but it is just SI cramming pointless additional screens that look shiny but only serve 10% more utility than before under the guise of new features. To me this is most prevalent by their game design that has sought out to make the tedious tasks of the manager life true to reality whilst game-fying the systems that actually matter and are fun in the game instead of padding them out to add the required gameplay depth. Examples of the latter include the tactics creator right now that is neither accurately replicative of modern football nor as complex as it once was with micromanagement to at least create complex systems in the game world that were fun. The set piece creator is another in an era where clubs are hiring specialist coaches for it, it’s rudimentary, terrible and not realistic at all.

I haven’t even brought up the graphics yet which is the single biggest issue with the game and the one that everyone is raising their pitchforks over. The game looks worse now than it was ten years ago, I don’t think there is a single game by a well known developer that has gone backwards like this. Mobile games have better details and attention to them than what SI is providing which is shocking. And whilst the switch to the new match engine has brought forward better representation of a football game with newer animations compared to the past, they still look like a joke. No player can perform feints for instance, technical volleys that are Puskas worthy in real life lose out to standard long range shots in the goal of the month awards and often there are no differences between two players in terms of playing style other than their attributes if they differ widely when that is not true of real life at all.

Coming to your points I do agree that optimisation is much better now in certain aspects of the game, I love how quickly the game saves in 22 for instance. However it still isn’t applied everywhere. More importantly though an optimisation pass or the smaller changes that they bring every year marketed as a new feature are often patch notes in other games. I do not think they’ve added anything on the scale of what Paradox does with their games with each patch (they do have accompanying DLC that helps offset the costs of the free patch but they are optional and often the patch is the real value product offered whilst the DLC is just something that fans buy to thank the devs for their work) such as a new small feature that many suggest would make sense and would not even require much effort comparatively. Instead the standard response if at all one is got will be ‘we’re looking at this for the next year‘ and you’ll be lucky if it ever features there. This is also what I refer to as complacency in marketing, they know that they can get away with announcing these minor changes as headline features because people will still pre-order it and buy it in troves. A better led developer or one who needs to respond to active competition will put more effort into working on and also showing off many of the changes or at the least present it in a way that is understood.

I don’t think management games are inherently impossible to develop beyond a point, OOTP is adding interesting features every year and is arguably more feature rich than FM with also lesser tedium. F1 Manager‘s representation of the sport gameplay and realism wise is a joke at the moment but this is the first attempt by their dev studio in this genre and in just two years they’ve developed a game that has incredibly good graphics blowing away any notions of graphics being an impossible thing to focus on for a complex management game. The FM team certainly lacks vision at the least and this is why they cannot communicate any roadmap of any sort to their fanbase. Look at Paradox for instance, they have over a hundred dev diaries for every game of theirs I play that happen almost every week detailing what the team’s plan is for the game at the moment and in the near future and they’re always open and realistic about what they can do in a game whilst catering to their fans. Their games are arguably more complex than FM IMO. Each DLC plus patch of theirs also introduces more than every yearly iteration of FM does these days, Stellaris for instance is nothing like the game it was at release.

Women’s football is a much needed feature in FM indeed but I genuinely have very less hope in the devs to bring about a revolution with it like many believe just because of how lacklustre they’ve been with the other half of football. I also think they would have been a lot more upfront with what changes it would be bringing if it was truly that groundbreaking to at least appease some of the angry noises that have arisen recently. I agree that the yearly release is doing them no good and a shift to any other alternative would be much appreciated but I doubt it will be better for the customer which is ironic given how poor it already is in terms of new features.

/rantover
 

Till Valhalla

ICC Chairman
The Boys
Joined
Jun 5, 2011
Profile Flag
Papua New Guinea
This whole wall of text is unlikely to be read by anyone other than you, me, Jabba and maybe Waste but screw it, I’m going to listen to the inner child that wants to rant.

The biggest issue with SI is that they have become completely complacent in all facets of game development and marketing due to well, the lack of competition for one and possibly their bosses not leading them on the right direction. There is a paradox (remember the name for I shall repeat this studio’s name again in other contexts :spy) in their game design now where they’re unsure as to just what they want the game to be. Too much effort is being put into things that have been minimally asked for and too little into things that everyone has asked for in contrast. This all stems down to them having no pulse on what the buyers and fans are seeking from FM, which is to be a fairly realistic game simulation of the football world where they can build their narratives and entertain themselves with their fantasies. Even the ones who only play for 50-100 hours (the equivalent of one season or two) just want immersion for the most part.

Except this immersion has come at the cost of tedium in areas that many did not want to be expanded upon. Press conferences are the main bugbear here but there are a lot more. More clicks are required to do the same things that were possible in a simpler way in earlier iterations. This isn’t complexity or depth added for the sake of gameplay challenge or immersion but it is just SI cramming pointless additional screens that look shiny but only serve 10% more utility than before under the guise of new features. To me this is most prevalent by their game design that has sought out to make the tedious tasks of the manager life true to reality whilst game-fying the systems that actually matter and are fun in the game instead of padding them out to add the required gameplay depth. Examples of the latter include the tactics creator right now that is neither accurately replicative of modern football nor as complex as it once was with micromanagement to at least create complex systems in the game world that were fun. The set piece creator is another in an era where clubs are hiring specialist coaches for it, it’s rudimentary, terrible and not realistic at all.

I haven’t even brought up the graphics yet which is the single biggest issue with the game and the one that everyone is raising their pitchforks over. The game looks worse now than it was ten years ago, I don’t think there is a single game by a well known developer that has gone backwards like this. Mobile games have better details and attention to them than what SI is providing which is shocking. And whilst the switch to the new match engine has brought forward better representation of a football game with newer animations compared to the past, they still look like a joke. No player can perform feints for instance, technical volleys that are Puskas worthy in real life lose out to standard long range shots in the goal of the month awards and often there are no differences between two players in terms of playing style other than their attributes if they differ widely when that is not true of real life at all.

Coming to your points I do agree that optimisation is much better now in certain aspects of the game, I love how quickly the game saves in 22 for instance. However it still isn’t applied everywhere. More importantly though an optimisation pass or the smaller changes that they bring every year marketed as a new feature are often patch notes in other games. I do not think they’ve added anything on the scale of what Paradox does with their games with each patch (they do have accompanying DLC that helps offset the costs of the free patch but they are optional and often the patch is the real value product offered whilst the DLC is just something that fans buy to thank the devs for their work) such as a new small feature that many suggest would make sense and would not even require much effort comparatively. Instead the standard response if at all one is got will be ‘we’re looking at this for the next year‘ and you’ll be lucky if it ever features there. This is also what I refer to as complacency in marketing, they know that they can get away with announcing these minor changes as headline features because people will still pre-order it and buy it in troves. A better led developer or one who needs to respond to active competition will put more effort into working on and also showing off many of the changes or at the least present it in a way that is understood.

I don’t think management games are inherently impossible to develop beyond a point, OOTP is adding interesting features every year and is arguably more feature rich than FM with also lesser tedium. F1 Manager‘s representation of the sport gameplay and realism wise is a joke at the moment but this is the first attempt by their dev studio in this genre and in just two years they’ve developed a game that has incredibly good graphics blowing away any notions of graphics being an impossible thing to focus on for a complex management game. The FM team certainly lacks vision at the least and this is why they cannot communicate any roadmap of any sort to their fanbase. Look at Paradox for instance, they have over a hundred dev diaries for every game of theirs I play that happen almost every week detailing what the team’s plan is for the game at the moment and in the near future and they’re always open and realistic about what they can do in a game whilst catering to their fans. Their games are arguably more complex than FM IMO. Each DLC plus patch of theirs also introduces more than every yearly iteration of FM does these days, Stellaris for instance is nothing like the game it was at release.

Women’s football is a much needed feature in FM indeed but I genuinely have very less hope in the devs to bring about a revolution with it like many believe just because of how lacklustre they’ve been with the other half of football. I also think they would have been a lot more upfront with what changes it would be bringing if it was truly that groundbreaking to at least appease some of the angry noises that have arisen recently. I agree that the yearly release is doing them no good and a shift to any other alternative would be much appreciated but I doubt it will be better for the customer which is ironic given how poor it already is in terms of new features.

/rantover
Sorry for the late reply
I mostly get them for free, so I try to overlook.
I understand your frustrations and have a few of them myself.
 

Bevab

Staff Member
Moderator
PlanetCricket Award Winner
Joined
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Location
India
Online Cricket Games Owned
  1. Don Bradman Cricket 14 - Steam PC
@Till Valhalla wonder if you’ve tried the new one?

I’m trying it on gamepass and I gotta say that I’m very pleasantly surprised by how much I’m enjoying it. All of my issues with it still persist and this is the most stale FM I’ve ever tried (it literally feels like FM 22.5) but the core gameplay is still solid. The new ME is fantastic and it’s clear that they need a better marketing approach because this should have been the key highlight in new features.

The new scouting module feels more realistic and far easier to use than before… I’m now a lot more actively involved in assigning them. Squad planner has been 50/50… I’ve used it for sure and it still feels very barebones but it’s not been something I’m constantly reverting to every month ingame. The supporters’ module is just repurposed info of what was previously hidden and so far it hasn’t made a big impact for me. Haven’t yet played in the European competitions and so I’m not sure how well that is integrated but from the outside it all looks nice so far.

Do give it a try if possible, I think you might like it. :)
 

Till Valhalla

ICC Chairman
The Boys
Joined
Jun 5, 2011
Profile Flag
Papua New Guinea
@Till Valhalla wonder if you’ve tried the new one?

I’m trying it on gamepass and I gotta say that I’m very pleasantly surprised by how much I’m enjoying it. All of my issues with it still persist and this is the most stale FM I’ve ever tried (it literally feels like FM 22.5) but the core gameplay is still solid. The new ME is fantastic and it’s clear that they need a better marketing approach because this should have been the key highlight in new features.

The new scouting module feels more realistic and far easier to use than before… I’m now a lot more actively involved in assigning them. Squad planner has been 50/50… I’ve used it for sure and it still feels very barebones but it’s not been something I’m constantly reverting to every month ingame. The supporters’ module is just repurposed info of what was previously hidden and so far it hasn’t made a big impact for me. Haven’t yet played in the European competitions and so I’m not sure how well that is integrated but from the outside it all looks nice so far.

Do give it a try if possible, I think you might like it. :)
I don't have gamepass so no new version for me. I am not a buyer I wait for free versions.
I got to change my laptop so started a new save with some database changes. Started a Indian domestic save, still in preseason. Would be fun to do a low budget team because I mostly play as Manchester United.

I have to be completely honest I don't know how to assign scouts in new versions, so they do their own thing on their own.
I believe they made way too many redundant screens in this one.

I am a very bad observer of little things and wouldn't notice much. I am simpleton I had fun good, I didn't bad.
 

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