The mobile version needs revisions in some fields

[Frikki]

As always, please excuse my english.

So, I'm a FM fan for years and due to obligations I'm mostly playing the mobile version for some years now.
And some things need to be revamped. Let's talk about this:

1. Older players.

This is probably the biggest issue in my eyes (also for the PC version).
With some exceptions like WC players like Lewandowski, Messi, Ronaldo and ofc Keepers the AI and or the game the game itself treats older players like... well... ****.
The number of players retiring with 32/33 is staggering and the number of players that worsen at a ridicolous rate with 31+ (even 1st team players) is horrendous.
I don't know what's the cause but I've seen this over several FMM's now with different saves and different "nation setups".
Is there some magical treshold in the code that translates to "enter the downward spiral"?

This issue creates strange moments like eg the money machine (ManCity) buying a player at the age of eg 30, just to release him out of his contract like two years later.
You know, like: City buyning Thauvin in 24/25 for 104 Mio Euros and releasing him at the end of 25/26. The player is "destroyed" now with stats showing that he hadn't much play-time.
And now he's playing for WSG Tirol, a middle team (at best) of Austria's first league?
Don't get me wrong, such stories appear IRL from time to time (total trainwreck of a career, like Samed Yesil, etc.). But such things happen not quite as much as they do ingame and IRL mostly appear to be a "overhyped talent" thing.

So please: Do something about older players. They end their careers to soon on average and loos their stats at least on AI-teams way to fast.
Older players are still considered to be worthless by most players, something that isn't correct on IRL basis (unless you have a special approach, like Leipzig or so).
They need a huge boost in usefulness regardless of the issue above, esp for the player who is more likely to kick 30+ out than the AI.
Mentoring shouldn't be a thing for players of 30 years or younger, so it offers a small benefit to the older players. Maybe some stats (incl hidden ones) should have thresholds until a player reaches a certain age.

 

2. The game is too easy

I know that everyone defines "difficulty" different. I'm not talking about abusing exploits (eg sign free players and sell them)
But overall the game is just too easy. It doesn't matter that much if start as a top team or work your way up from the lowest leagues.

This boils down to one thing in particular: It's too cheap to sign players or renew their contracts.
The signing fees are way too low. IRL a normal signing fee is something like the salary of one year, for a simple renewing.
Signing fees of free agents tend to be even higher, but this is based on the players standing.

Another thing is that players don't really care for their role in the club.
Should a talent go with worlds top 10 team, warming the bench (or worse) or should it go with a mid-sized club and doing things step by step?
There are examples for both cases. But ingame you can get any talent, if your club is big enough.
Players don't even really rebel against their club role, at least not on the players side. Some starting caps against low tier teams and they're happy again that's it.
AI teams have such cases, they player can simplay ship arround these cliffs.

 

 

There are some other things but I guess it's enough text for now.

[Marc Vaughan]

With older players how long they last depends on a lot of factors within the game, they WILL lose some physical attributes (as happens in real-life) ... however more professional and hardworking players will make up for these in other ways ...

How much actual ability they retain or lose depends to a large extent on their match time, if a player rots in the reserves then he will lose his edge ... if he keeps playing at the top level then he will keep his ability. The difficulty for many good older players at large clubs is simply that as they age they lose their playing time and so are pretty much put out to farm after a while. If they don't move clubs to maximize their playing time then they'll likely retire.

That being said - Exactly how/when this happens and the nature of squad management etc. is something I'm always tuning and working on improving.

[Frikki]

Thank you for the reply.

Well... let's boild it down to a simple question: Would a player like Ibrahimovic or Buffon even be possible in FMM?
And yes, I mean "still good players" of a top team in a top league, nott something like "bench-warmer of a mid-tier league 3 team"

 

Oh, one thing that needs a serious revamp is the national teams.
Please make these players fully scoutet and provide some screen, where eg simply choose eg from the 5 best Keepers of that nation and than move on to the next position.
ATM it's really strange to manage a national team.

[Marc Vaughan]

29 minutes ago, Frikki said:

Well... let's boild it down to a simple question: Would a player like Ibrahimovic or Buffon even be possible in FMM?
And yes, I mean "still good players" of a top team in a top league, nott something like "bench-warmer of a mid-tier league 3 team"

Goalkeepers definitely yes, I've kept keepers in FMM until they're 38 or so and they've performed well for me at the top level - it requires someone who is a model professional and is lucky enough to avoid injuries. They do lose their edge slightly as they get older but still perform well.

With outfield players I've had players perform at the top level until 36 (esp. defenders) - Ibrahimovic is a one off and while its theoretically possible in the game, once they pass their prime one bad injury can often take them down. If you think about it how many other outfield players irl have managed what he is doing? - the man is frankly astounding.

I will run some tests and try and recreate Ibra's career (as I think it'll be a nice challenge to undertake) - but if it needs some tweaking then obviously I'll do it ...

[Hildor]

17 hours ago, Marc Vaughan said:

Goalkeepers definitely yes, I've kept keepers in FMM until they're 38 or so and they've performed well for me at the top level - it requires someone who is a model professional and is lucky enough to avoid injuries. They do lose their edge slightly as they get older but still perform well.

With outfield players I've had players perform at the top level until 36 (esp. defenders) - Ibrahimovic is a one off and while its theoretically possible in the game, once they pass their prime one bad injury can often take them down. If you think about it how many other outfield players irl have managed what he is doing? - the man is frankly astounding.

I will run some tests and try and recreate Ibra's career (as I think it'll be a nice challenge to undertake) - but if it needs some tweaking then obviously I'll do it ...

No doubt Ibra is one of exception, the database itself comes with some 40+ players (signed 41 year old Boruc for example) but it does seem that no player from the start of the game reaches that age, in my case never had any player reaching 40 and I do play a lot of 30+ players usually. 

Also find it weird that some players with still 2/3 years contract decide to retire at the end of the contract, meaning they won't move elsewhere, in real life a player who decides he's going to play for a couple of more years and retires would he stay to rot in the reserves or maybe go play two years for his first team for example? Or move to the MLS? 😜

[Hildor]

On 25/02/2021 at 14:22, Frikki said:

As always, please excuse my english.

So, I'm a FM fan for years and due to obligations I'm mostly playing the mobile version for some years now.
And some things need to be revamped. Let's talk about this:

1. Older players.

This is probably the biggest issue in my eyes (also for the PC version).
With some exceptions like WC players like Lewandowski, Messi, Ronaldo and ofc Keepers the AI and or the game the game itself treats older players like... well... ****.
The number of players retiring with 32/33 is staggering and the number of players that worsen at a ridicolous rate with 31+ (even 1st team players) is horrendous.
I don't know what's the cause but I've seen this over several FMM's now with different saves and different "nation setups".
Is there some magical treshold in the code that translates to "enter the downward spiral"?

This issue creates strange moments like eg the money machine (ManCity) buying a player at the age of eg 30, just to release him out of his contract like two years later.
You know, like: City buyning Thauvin in 24/25 for 104 Mio Euros and releasing him at the end of 25/26. The player is "destroyed" now with stats showing that he hadn't much play-time.
And now he's playing for WSG Tirol, a middle team (at best) of Austria's first league?
Don't get me wrong, such stories appear IRL from time to time (total trainwreck of a career, like Samed Yesil, etc.). But such things happen not quite as much as they do ingame and IRL mostly appear to be a "overhyped talent" thing.

So please: Do something about older players. They end their careers to soon on average and loos their stats at least on AI-teams way to fast.
Older players are still considered to be worthless by most players, something that isn't correct on IRL basis (unless you have a special approach, like Leipzig or so).
They need a huge boost in usefulness regardless of the issue above, esp for the player who is more likely to kick 30+ out than the AI.
Mentoring shouldn't be a thing for players of 30 years or younger, so it offers a small benefit to the older players. Maybe some stats (incl hidden ones) should have thresholds until a player reaches a certain age.

 

2. The game is too easy

I know that everyone defines "difficulty" different. I'm not talking about abusing exploits (eg sign free players and sell them)
But overall the game is just too easy. It doesn't matter that much if start as a top team or work your way up from the lowest leagues.

This boils down to one thing in particular: It's too cheap to sign players or renew their contracts.
The signing fees are way too low. IRL a normal signing fee is something like the salary of one year, for a simple renewing.
Signing fees of free agents tend to be even higher, but this is based on the players standing.

Another thing is that players don't really care for their role in the club.
Should a talent go with worlds top 10 team, warming the bench (or worse) or should it go with a mid-sized club and doing things step by step?
There are examples for both cases. But ingame you can get any talent, if your club is big enough.
Players don't even really rebel against their club role, at least not on the players side. Some starting caps against low tier teams and they're happy again that's it.
AI teams have such cases, they player can simplay ship arround these cliffs.

 

 

There are some other things but I guess it's enough text for now.

Imo the main problem about the game becoming to easy is the AI being dumb over the years they let their rosters age and basically destroy them. I do a lot of journeyman saves and moving around clubs I find the weirdest squads, one team I moved was 70% into the league and only had one CB and 5 RBs... AI doesn't even seem to know how to ad basic depth to a squad, so over the time everyone gets weaker while we know how to build strong squads. 

Edited February 27, 2021 by Hildor

[Hildor]

Just remembered something else, we can loan a player on a long term injury but not buy a player on a 2 week injury, he always fails the medicals, apparently loaned in players don't do medicals 😁

[casperzwaart100]

On 27/02/2021 at 09:13, Hildor said:

No doubt Ibra is one of exception, the database itself comes with some 40+ players (signed 41 year old Boruc for example) but it does seem that no player from the start of the game reaches that age, in my case never had any player reaching 40 and I do play a lot of 30+ players usually. 

Also find it weird that some players with still 2/3 years contract decide to retire at the end of the contract, meaning they won't move elsewhere, in real life a player who decides he's going to play for a couple of more years and retires would he stay to rot in the reserves or maybe go play two years for his first team for example? Or move to the MLS? 😜

Well I have a  36~ year old Tadic in my team and he just signed a 5 year contract extension, so it definitely is possible

[Marc Vaughan]

38 minutes ago, casperzwaart100 said:

Well I have a  36~ year old Tadic in my team and he just signed a 5 year contract extension, so it definitely is possible

A lot depends on the managers style with humans imho - a lot of people tend to drop older players too early in my opinion because they have a 'hot young thing' coming through the ranks - older players might lose a few points from stats as they age, but often that is more than made up for with the improvements to their mental statistics and influence on the rest of the team.

[casperzwaart100]

3 hours ago, Marc Vaughan said:

A lot depends on the managers style with humans imho - a lot of people tend to drop older players too early in my opinion because they have a 'hot young thing' coming through the ranks - older players might lose a few points from stats as they age, but often that is more than made up for with the improvements to their mental statistics and influence on the rest of the team.

Oh yeah he hasn't played in like 2 years, I offered the contract as a joke and now I kind of want to recover him

[Frikki]

On 27/02/2021 at 09:17, Hildor said:

Imo the main problem about the game becoming to easy is the AI being dumb over the years they let their rosters age and basically destroy them. I do a lot of journeyman saves and moving around clubs I find the weirdest squads, one team I moved was 70% into the league and only had one CB and 5 RBs... AI doesn't even seem to know how to ad basic depth to a squad, so over the time everyone gets weaker while we know how to build strong squads. 

 

Well, this is true aswell.
At my current save Bayern uses a RFB of their reserves team because they sold their only real RFB at the start of the season.
They could possibly use Mamin Sanyang (semi-good talent), although RFB or RWB is only his "secondary position", but not, they loaned him at the same time.

The AI needs two things to be a challenge even in the lategame:

1. A basic depth-check for the squad (eg have 2 RFB and 1 player who can play their in a pinch)
(This should go hand in hand with the formation ofc - no reason for 4 strikers, if they don't use more then one in their formation)

1.1. This could be done by loaning older(!) players that don't get much caps
1.2. No one would be mad if there would be a resonable position gain, if it's in the middle of the season and there were several injuries (eg CB #3 or #4 is suddenly "acceptable" as RFB or so)

 

2. The managers favorite formation shouldn't have that much impact

I've seen so many Wingers being crippled because the clubs new manager prefered eg 5-3-2 without wingers, it really makes my heart bleed.
At the same time they enforce Wingbacks although the club doesn't have any.
To cut a long story short: The pref. formation of a manager should NEVER be ranked higher than what squad the club has.

 

PS: It was posted so often in the requests section, but still: We need manager contracts for the player and the AI.

Edited March 2, 2021 by Frikki

[passenger58]

42 minutes ago, Frikki said:

 

Well, this is true aswell.
At my current save Bayern uses a RFB of their reserves team because they sold their only real RFB at the start of the season.
They could possibly use Mamin Sanyang (semi-good talent), although RFB or RWB is only his "secondary position", but not, they loaned him at the same time.

The AI needs two things to be a challenge even in the lategame:

1. A basic depth-check for the squad (eg have 2 RFB and 1 player who can play their in a pinch)
(This should go hand in hand with the formation ofc - no reason for 4 strikers, if they don't use more then one in their formation)

1.1. This could be done by loaning older(!) players that don't get much caps
1.2. No one would be mad if there would be a resonable position gain, if it's in the middle of the season and there were several injuries (eg CB #3 or #4 is suddenly "acceptable" as RFB or so)

 

2. The managers favorite formation shouldn't have that much impact

I've seen so many Wingers being crippled because the clubs new manager prefered eg 5-3-2 without wingers, it really makes my heart bleed.
At the same time they enforce Wingbacks although the club doesn't have any.
To cut a long story short: The pref. formation of a manager should NEVER be ranked higher than what squad the club has.

 

PS: It was posted so often in the requests section, but still: We need manager contracts for the player and the AI.

With regards the AI checking for squad depth, it does this for human managers already with both the team report and the recommended signings when you join a new club.

It just needs to use this info when it comes to squad building for AI teams.

[Hildor]

22 hours ago, Frikki said:

 

Well, this is true aswell.
At my current save Bayern uses a RFB of their reserves team because they sold their only real RFB at the start of the season.
They could possibly use Mamin Sanyang (semi-good talent), although RFB or RWB is only his "secondary position", but not, they loaned him at the same time.

The AI needs two things to be a challenge even in the lategame:

1. A basic depth-check for the squad (eg have 2 RFB and 1 player who can play their in a pinch)
(This should go hand in hand with the formation ofc - no reason for 4 strikers, if they don't use more then one in their formation)

1.1. This could be done by loaning older(!) players that don't get much caps
1.2. No one would be mad if there would be a resonable position gain, if it's in the middle of the season and there were several injuries (eg CB #3 or #4 is suddenly "acceptable" as RFB or so)

 

2. The managers favorite formation shouldn't have that much impact

I've seen so many Wingers being crippled because the clubs new manager prefered eg 5-3-2 without wingers, it really makes my heart bleed.
At the same time they enforce Wingbacks although the club doesn't have any.
To cut a long story short: The pref. formation of a manager should NEVER be ranked higher than what squad the club has.

 

PS: It was posted so often in the requests section, but still: We need manager contracts for the player and the AI.

I agree with the contracts but specially having the option to accept another club offer but postponed it till the end of the season. Lots of time I lose good job offers because in fighting for a title in my current team and want to finish my job.

Another example is managing nations (when are we getting a small revamp btw?). I was managing Nigeria and doing well in world Cup, a few other nations fired their managers, I applied and got job offers while I was still in the world Cup with Nigeria, a postpone for a week option would be good for example. 

Edited March 3, 2021 by Hildor

[Lillywhite Dean]

On 25/02/2021 at 14:22, Frikki said:

As always, please excuse my english.

So, I'm a FM fan for years and due to obligations I'm mostly playing the mobile version for some years now.
And some things need to be revamped. Let's talk about this:

1. Older players.

This is probably the biggest issue in my eyes (also for the PC version).
With some exceptions like WC players like Lewandowski, Messi, Ronaldo and ofc Keepers the AI and or the game the game itself treats older players like... well... ****.
The number of players retiring with 32/33 is staggering and the number of players that worsen at a ridicolous rate with 31+ (even 1st team players) is horrendous.
I don't know what's the cause but I've seen this over several FMM's now with different saves and different "nation setups".
Is there some magical treshold in the code that translates to "enter the downward spiral"?

This issue creates strange moments like eg the money machine (ManCity) buying a player at the age of eg 30, just to release him out of his contract like two years later.
You know, like: City buyning Thauvin in 24/25 for 104 Mio Euros and releasing him at the end of 25/26. The player is "destroyed" now with stats showing that he hadn't much play-time.
And now he's playing for WSG Tirol, a middle team (at best) of Austria's first league?
Don't get me wrong, such stories appear IRL from time to time (total trainwreck of a career, like Samed Yesil, etc.). But such things happen not quite as much as they do ingame and IRL mostly appear to be a "overhyped talent" thing.

So please: Do something about older players. They end their careers to soon on average and loos their stats at least on AI-teams way to fast.
Older players are still considered to be worthless by most players, something that isn't correct on IRL basis (unless you have a special approach, like Leipzig or so).
They need a huge boost in usefulness regardless of the issue above, esp for the player who is more likely to kick 30+ out than the AI.
Mentoring shouldn't be a thing for players of 30 years or younger, so it offers a small benefit to the older players. Maybe some stats (incl hidden ones) should have thresholds until a player reaches a certain age.

 

2. The game is too easy

I know that everyone defines "difficulty" different. I'm not talking about abusing exploits (eg sign free players and sell them)
But overall the game is just too easy. It doesn't matter that much if start as a top team or work your way up from the lowest leagues.

This boils down to one thing in particular: It's too cheap to sign players or renew their contracts.
The signing fees are way too low. IRL a normal signing fee is something like the salary of one year, for a simple renewing.
Signing fees of free agents tend to be even higher, but this is based on the players standing.

Another thing is that players don't really care for their role in the club.
Should a talent go with worlds top 10 team, warming the bench (or worse) or should it go with a mid-sized club and doing things step by step?
There are examples for both cases. But ingame you can get any talent, if your club is big enough.
Players don't even really rebel against their club role, at least not on the players side. Some starting caps against low tier teams and they're happy again that's it.
AI teams have such cases, they player can simplay ship arround these cliffs.

 

 

There are some other things but I guess it's enough text for now.

Good post. 

[Frikki]

21 hours ago, Hildor said:

I agree with the contracts but specially having the option to accept another club offer but postponed it till the end of the season. Lots of time I lose good job offers because in fighting for a title in my current team and want to finish my job.

Another example is managing nations (when are we getting a small revamp btw?). I was managing Nigeria and doing well in world Cup, a few other nations fired their managers, I applied and got job offers while I was still in the world Cup with Nigeria, a postpone for a week option would be good for example. 

 

Yep, if you do a "ground-hopping" save, there is no other way if you want to swtich to another league/club.
There isn't even much fanfare, no, you somewhat "cheat them" and leave like a coward, no matter what glorious moments you had with them.
 

BTW: Adding fixed contracts could even add some difficulty, since the players wage would be deducted from the budgets of the club.
(And no, no "I'll manage Barca for free". A realistic amount that the player can't negotiate (based on club prestige, clubs money, league, player/manager prestige, etc).
Heck, did you even know that Simeone earns 30 Mio p.a. / 570k p.w.?! - Flick 7 Mio p.a., Guardiola 23 Mio p.a., etc.)

[Frikki]

One more thing regarding the difficulty: Since AI teams never sustain a high morale squad like the player could, there should be fine tuning as well. 

 

The highest ranks, like superb should be extremely rare and only be achieved by eg new contracts, 10s (or 9s) and only be temporary, even if there is no match in between.