Football Manager 2021 Official Feedback Thread

[Johnny Ace]

4 minutes ago, HUNT3R said:

I see handballs fairly often.

Ah good!! For a penalty or just in general play?

[HUNT3R]

4 minutes ago, Johnny Ace said:

Ah good!! For a penalty or just in general play?

No, in the box for a penalty. Often from a corner kick.

[Zemahh]

Is this a bug? Player wanted a new deal and I gave him one that starts next year. He agreed and signed it, but is still unhappy. 

[Hovis Dexter]

18 hours ago, Zemahh said:

Is this a bug? Player wanted a new deal and I gave him one that starts next year. He agreed and signed it, but is still unhappy. 

I’ve found that. It seems to take an unhappy player some time before he realises that he’s signed a precontract. I can’t remember if he stays unhappy until the new contract kicks in or whether he loses his unhappiness before then. I do remember, however, that his unhappiness does not get worse.

[Sundaytwist]

I've recently started playing FM21 as I bought a new laptop (wouldn't play on my previous one for some weird reason) and I'm enjoying it but I really hope that for the next release, the ingame recommendations from your assistant can be turned off and be optional. I'm sick of pressing ignore and always ignore does nothing.

I've noticed a few bugs in it like a story that a player is unhappy, after a chat is happy to stay and then a day or so later, is unhappy again and wants to leave. I've also noticed that in the pre game team talk, it sometimes gets the league standings wrong and I've even had it ask me to substitute a player from the opposition lol.

On the whole, it's fun but the in-game pop ups really drive me insane.

[LucasBR]

Why my players can't rest after playing at Club World Cup? No matter what I do, rest in all training sessions or give them players rest individually they don't rest at all.

[KlaaZ]

Anyone ever seen corner instructions ignore to the extreme? I just had a phase on a corner where I had nobody back, despite having three players set on stay back if needed and one opposing striker remaining up front. I didn't even await the outcome but force quit as this smells like a clear bug, but I'm unsure what it was.

[Johnny Ace]

18 minutes ago, KlaaZ said:

Anyone ever seen corner instructions ignore to the extreme? I just had a phase on a corner where I had nobody back, despite having three players set on stay back if needed and one opposing striker remaining up front. I didn't even await the outcome but force quit as this smells like a clear bug, but I'm unsure what it was.

Set pieces are a bit of mess

I set someone far post & attacking far post & they just bunch up in the middle. Throw ins just seem random, I want my strikers in the box for a throw in but they always come short & I just ignore the freekicks 

 

[bahmet]

Playing online with a friend. Why, when he connects to the game and selects his team, then game messages do not come to him? If we play on the same computer, then everything works.

[mightypvfc]

Pretty impressed with this year's version. Match engine is very impressive. Game difficulty seems to have increased immeasurably when you start at the bottom with Sunday League experience. I'm managing Witton in the Northern Premier (my first long save on this game) with one of the mods in the Editor's forum. Amazing level of detail. So, I started unemployed and then waited a couple of months. Then took Witton who were available and hanging perilously just outside of the relegation places. Of course, me having no game on this version at all, we proceeded to lose 4 straight league games to teams around us and cut us adrift by 7 points. Just gone away to Atherton Collieries who had lost 6 games in a row and get battered 2-1. The scoreline is flattering to us because we were in the game for maybe 10 minutes in the second half. Now I regret ticking the "Disable transfer window in first season" box. I have a squad of 17 players and no reserve or youth teams. It's madness. I'd need Pep tactical skills to get this lot out of trouble.

[Platinum]

Great news that SI have now moved to an agile development practise. This game seems ideal for that type of development and is in line with what's typically best practise for development. 

[jeeshan2000]

I didnt know where to post this, but if this isnt the right thread, please do let me know where i can. This is just a general feedback, that i hope will be addressed in FM2022. 

One of the issues i have had with FM (not just with 21 but even editions before that) is players expecting new contracts almost every season. And if you say you cant (for whatever reason), or if you wish to defer to end of the season, players get unsettled. Others also end up voicing their concerns. Sometimes if your captain has a word, it works, sometimes it doesnt. Most often it leads to players wanting to leave. And its not just an increment, also cause for concern is the amount of increment they expect which often is 100-300%. 

Just to give an example, I had purchased players and offered wages of around 15K per week for a backup role. After a season they end up expecting to be a first team player and a salary over 50K. Hypothetically you negotiate and offer something 30-35. The same player will want an increment again in the subsequent season. These are not isolated incidents. The same arises for numerous others in the squad, and can get worse for regens who seem to have very unrealistic expectations. 

I dont know what occurs in real life eg. in England or Italy. But i can tell you in La Liga, players dont get new contracts so easily. Someone whose contract runs out in 2024, may only get an extension in 2022 or 2023. And the player will certainly not keep on asking for extensions annually.  Most clubs (except the big ones) operate with salary caps and wont allow two or three fold increments like it occurs in FM. 

Hope this is something SI can look into. The more realistic the game is, the more fun it is. 

 

 

[Harrymcintyre]

I wonder how sigames is gonna get me to cave and buy fm22 this year when I feel fm21 is the perfect football management game ever, I just don’t see how it could be topped. Can’t wait to see the features that have been worked on for fm 22. 

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Harrymcintyre said:

I wonder how sigames is gonna get me to cave and buy fm22 this year when I feel fm21 is the perfect football management game ever, I just don’t see how it could be topped. Can’t wait to see the features that have been worked on for fm 22. 

FM21 are filled with bugs and OP-players:) i hope they really step up with fm22 and really get involved here and listen to us customers.

[Nick_CB]

I really hope that in FM22 the long balls made by GK that result in a goal are fixed, it's ridiculous

[Harrymcintyre]

3 hours ago, MasterFolke said:

FM21 are filled with bugs and OP-players:) i hope they really step up with fm22 and really get involved here and listen to us customers.

OP players? Like the ones in real life like Ronaldo and messi? Yeah, sigames, weaken those guys please, we don’t want realism no more, they are too good.

[Federico]

4 ore fa, MasterFolke ha scritto:

 and really get involved here and listen to us customers.

It's literally what they did since... 20 years, more or less.

[Guest]

14 hours ago, Harrymcintyre said:

OP players? Like the ones in real life like Ronaldo and messi? Yeah, sigames, weaken those guys please, we don’t want realism no more, they are too good.

Haha not them😂 i mean all of the regens that become as Good as those two. And then We have Moukoko and Haaland, Isak etc…

Edited September 18, 2021 by Guest

[Nick_CB]

Nice set pieces 

[naterego93]

We need dynamic potential and ability already, some RNG makes things spicier

[Marko1989]

3 hours ago, naterego93 said:

We need dynamic potential and ability already, some RNG makes things spicier

I agree 100% with this but I don't think it will ever happen. I asked for that for a couple times and most of the veteran players don't like idea of dynamic potential ( I don't know why they don't want a change that would make every save game even more different), and once even one very important FM person answered with something like "if you have an idea how we can improve cutrrent PA system please post it..." so they will not even bother with thinking about it

Edited September 19, 2021 by Marko1989

[zabyl]

9 dakika önce, Marko1989 said:

once even one very important FM person answered with something like "if you have an idea how we can improve cutrrent PA system please post it..." so they will not even bother with thinking about it

Something like this can add realism to player development: 

Increasing/decreasing player’s static potential to limited degrees depending on his increasing/decreasing world reputation. Between 9000-10000 reputation can have higher potential like at least 180. 8000-9000 as 160-180, 7000-8000 as 140-160, 6000-7000 as 120-140. Something like this can be more realistic than limited or not limited potential. 

[Platinum]

18 minutes ago, Marko1989 said:

I agree 100% with this but I don't think it will ever happen. I asked for that for a couple times and most of the veteran players don't like idea of dynamic potential ( I don't know why they don't want a change that would make every save game even more different), and once even one very important FM person answered with something like "if you have an idea how we can improve cutrrent PA system please post it..." so they will not even bother with thinking about it

The point was that people disagreed with your suggestion of how to improve it, which is fair enough

[Marko1989]

17 minutes ago, zabyl said:

Something like this can add realism to player development: 

Increasing/decreasing player’s static potential to limited degrees depending on his increasing/decreasing world reputation. Between 9000-10000 reputation can have higher potential like at least 180. 8000-9000 as 160-180, 7000-8000 as 140-160, 6000-7000 as 120-140. Something like this can be more realistic than limited or not limited potential. 

I agree that it would be much more realistic, but more things had to be taken into consideration when improving player PA not just reputation, for example if he is overachieving constantly, if he is playing much better than his attributes are currently, if his team is overachieving because of him and so on, a couple of factors. 

That would make every save game more different, that would create late boomers, players who drastically improve late in the career and so on. This current system is already primitive, most of the players stop developing at the age of 23 and you can very rarely see players improve after 26-27 which is not the case in real life. 26 is still very young. With this current system, even without using any of the tools to see PA/CA you can easily learn after couple of saves who are wonderkids and which players will develop good and which players will not.

Edited September 19, 2021 by Marko1989

[zabyl]

47 dakika önce, Marko1989 said:

1 saat önce, zabyl said:

I agree that it would be much more realistic, but more things had to be taken into consideration when improving player PA not just reputation, for example if he is overachieving constantly, if he is playing much better than his attributes are currently, if his team is overachieving because of him and so on, a couple of factors. 

Overachieving high match ratings for some time increases reputation directly.

[zyfon5]

2 hours ago, zabyl said:

Something like this can add realism to player development: 

Increasing/decreasing player’s static potential to limited degrees depending on his increasing/decreasing world reputation. Between 9000-10000 reputation can have higher potential like at least 180. 8000-9000 as 160-180, 7000-8000 as 140-160, 6000-7000 as 120-140. Something like this can be more realistic than limited or not limited potential. 

These things can be easily abused though. Just put any decent player into a good team that are guaranteed to win something like PSG and profit from it. This will create huge advantages for big teams as any decent player that comes into their team will see an abnormal increase in potential.

[zyfon5]

2 hours ago, Marko1989 said:

I agree that it would be much more realistic, but more things had to be taken into consideration when improving player PA not just reputation, for example if he is overachieving constantly, if he is playing much better than his attributes are currently, if his team is overachieving because of him and so on, a couple of factors. 

That would make every save game more different, that would create late boomers, players who drastically improve late in the career and so on. This current system is already primitive, most of the players stop developing at the age of 23 and you can very rarely see players improve after 26-27 which is not the case in real life. 26 is still very young. With this current system, even without using any of the tools to see PA/CA you can easily learn after couple of saves who are wonderkids and which players will develop good and which players will not.

His method has significant downsides as I have explained above. The better way to do it will be to tweak the player development model so that there is not a hard cap to player development at a certain point in game and allow more room for fluctuation in attributes throughout a player's career. 26 may be considered young for a defender or a goalkeeper but generally most players development slows down at 25-26. Even significant late bloomers like Navas was already one of La liga's best GK at 26. Same goes to most late bloomers in other positions. Their breakthrough seasons mostly come at the age of 26 latest so it is safe to assume most players would not make significant strides after 26.

[zabyl]

13 dakika önce, zyfon5 said:

These things can be easily abused though. Just put any decent player into a good team that are guaranteed to win something like PSG and profit from it. This will create huge advantages for big teams as any decent player that comes into their team will see an abnormal increase in potential.

I think my idea suits more to real life football and FM does this indirectly like; decent players moving to higher clubs, have better attributes and CA-PA on next year's FM. 

As you said it can be abused by top teams in game if codes don't limit some aspects of this.

[HUNT3R]

This sort of discussion is off-topic and would be better discussed in the feature requests section. Thanks.

 

Edit: Here's the link : https://community.sigames.com/forums/forum/353-football-manager-feature-requests-pcmac/

[Johnny Ace]

I'm in 2035 & every team I face are playing 4-2-3-1  Is this a thing? 

[Piperita]

1 hour ago, Johnny Ace said:

I'm in 2035 & every team I face are playing 4-2-3-1  Is this a thing? 

For me the 4231 is also one of the preferred formations I face after a few years. Which is a shame because my current tactic is not as much overperforming against them as against others.

I am just glad only three teams have decided to play a 5-2-1-2 (flat five defenders, 2 DM and a DLP in CM) whenever they face me and only twice have I faced a 5-4-1 (flat five, 2 DM, 2 DW) because those are just disgusting to watch!

[Johnny Ace]

5 minutes ago, Piperita said:

For me the 4231 is also one of the preferred formations I face after a few years. Which is a shame because my current tactic is not as much overperforming against them as against others.

I am just glad only three teams have decided to play a 5-2-1-2 (flat five defenders, 2 DM and a DLP in CM) whenever they face me and only twice have I faced a 5-4-1 (flat five, 2 DM, 2 DW) because those are just disgusting to watch!

Ew yeah, that's just miserable to face  At least you're playing against other formations 

[Piperita]

8 minutes ago, Johnny Ace said:

Ew yeah, that's just miserable to face  At least you're playing against other formations 

A lot of it is my fault and the fault of the insane amount of English money. My Youth academy produces a lot of competent Half-Backs and Advanced Forwards. These roles tend to reach pro-level at relatively low CA which is why they often have quite a few Champion's League and first team appearances when they reach 18.

Their reputation increases their value and interest from other clubs, especially when they have not reached star player levels. So whenever the English clubs poach the top players from other clubs, they then come knocking for my players with absolutely wild numbers. Like 50 millions plus for players with CA/PA of 128/132. Which after they bought them makes them realise "Wait, this guy is like 30 CA under the rest of our team" which makes them immediately buy another player for their position who is well above the rest of their team.

If that pattern continues for a while, it isn't unusual for my opponents to have too many DM or ST for the 4-2-3-1 or in their directors to look towards managers who can handle this mess of a squad planning.

This is also how Leverkusen gravitated towards a 4-4-2 for two years: They lost Schick and Alario and bough Diawusie (a good striker for a relegation candidate by CA but with a very good spread of attributes) as a replacement. After a while the reputation was superseded by his CA and they bought another striker because "his" spot was deemed underutilised (despite him averaging well above 0,8 goals/game). As it happened, the half year he was active, they often used their amazing wingers as replacements and Diaby/Bailley had grown to be quite confident in that role. So after they bought a new "full" striker, soon afterwards Bailley was deemed to be primarily another striker, so Leverkusen also bought a new Winger. And with that they had way too many star players available that only could play together in a 4-4-2 ^^

[andu1]

3 hours ago, Johnny Ace said:

I'm in 2035 & every team I face are playing 4-2-3-1  Is this a thing? 

This issue was present from at least FM 19 onwards. I have opened myself a thread in the bugs forum when FM 21 was in BETA and several others have also reported the issue in other threads.

I hope that the AI is more flexible when it comes to the formations it uses for the next FM.

[Johnny Ace]

1 minute ago, andu1 said:

This issue was present from at least FM 19 onwards. I have opened myself a thread in the bugs forum when FM 21 was in BETA and several others have also reported the issue in other threads.

I hope that the AI is more flexible when it comes to the formations it uses for the next FM.

I do too. Wasn't sure if it just my save so I'm glad you've experienced it & reported it because it's pretty daft 

[Zemahh]

Does anyone know why there's no frequency option for how often my 2nd team manager should arrange friendly matches?

For example, it's there for U19's, but not for the 2nd team:

My 2nd team basically has no fixtures despite the option "Team manager arranges friendly matches" being ticked:

How exactly is 2nd team different to U23s that other clubs have?

[autohoratio]

59 minutes ago, Zemahh said:

Does anyone know why there's no frequency option for how often my 2nd team manager should arrange friendly matches?

For example, it's there for U19's, but not for the 2nd team:

My 2nd team basically has no fixtures despite the option "Team manager arranges friendly matches" being ticked:

How exactly is 2nd team different to U23s that other clubs have?

I suspect (but just a guess) that it's something to do with this issue:

Hopefully it's fixed for FM22 as well.

[ExeChris]

Hopefully FM22 will not have the issue I've just had in my FA Trophy game.  In injury time and a player goes off injured, I've used all 3 subs so can't replace him, but we can make a 4th sub in extra time.  However come extra time I can't bring on a sub to get us back to 11 players, I have to replace an existing player.
Unless that is actually the rule, which seems pretty stupid, can they fix this?

[warlock]

2 hours ago, ExeChris said:

Unless that is actually the rule

Pretty sure that is the rule - you can't "substitute" a player who isn't on the pitch.

[ExeChris]

15 minutes ago, warlock said:

Pretty sure that is the rule - you can't "substitute" a player who isn't on the pitch.

My bad then - I should have got him to just lie on the pitch for two minutes until the game ended and we could have legitimately subbed him. 

[warlock]

40 minutes ago, ExeChris said:

I should have got him to just lie on the pitch for two minutes until the game ended

I had a quick look at substitute rules before I posted and that's actually a legit tactic, I think. Apparently the ref can't enforce a substitute but can order teams to play on. Unfortunately, in FM I'm pretty sure the game will take an injured player off regardless.

Edit: Thinking about it a bit more, it's something of a grey area. If an injured player leaves the field but isn't substituted, what's to stop him returning to play after "recovery" and then being subbed? We've all seen players getting 5-plus minutes of treatment on the sidelines before returning to play. Probably needs a qualified ref to explain it all.

Edited October 9, 2021 by warlock

[keijo]

Does attending a Top target's match not create even a news article anymore? I've got this GK who wasn't even willing to negotiate with me but my scouts been tracking for a couple of months now. So now he was interested and as a last push I attended his national team match, nothing. So next game I attended too but also had my DoF with me, and the news only mentioned him.

No point in attending matches, then?

[FrazT]

On 09/10/2021 at 19:42, ExeChris said:

Hopefully FM22 will not have the issue I've just had in my FA Trophy game.  In injury time and a player goes off injured, I've used all 3 subs so can't replace him, but we can make a 4th sub in extra time.  However come extra time I can't bring on a sub to get us back to 11 players, I have to replace an existing player.
Unless that is actually the rule, which seems pretty stupid, can they fix this?

This came up before and on checking, it was conformed that this is the rule- you can only substitute a player who is on the pitch.  I suspect that it will be changed in the future though.

[Johnny Ace]

All in in all, I've enjoyed FM21 a lot more than 19 or 20

I'm not too fussed about the off the pitch stuff, the UI is largely forgotten as that's sorted with a skin. Player interactions are still a bit wonky 

On the pitch, the FM21 ME is pretty damn good, I won't go into much detail because I've moaned or logged them already but a few things do annoy me:

- Goalkeepers - in some 1500 hours of playing, I've never once seen goalkeeper sent off or injured during a game (in a full detail league), not once have I had a keeper on the bench. Some goalkeeper drama would be nice, even if it is only once every 250 games. (*As I'm typing this I've had a notification from Reddit with someone saying the same thing)  Sweeper keepers, never dribble out of the box with the ball or significantly come off their lines to close down an oncoming player. They're just boring. Eccentricity & Flair in keepers mean pretty much nothing, the occasional "mad keeper" moment would be nice. From the FM22 previews, this is looking promising

- Goalkeeper distribution, in my main saves I've used nothing more than SK(D) because of how bad the (S &  A) distribution was, I'm not sure if it was ever fixed but it was maddening when they've worked perfectly fine in previous FMs

- Roles, some roles just don't do what they say on the tin, namely the Libero & Raumdeuter. Not that I know anything about how the ME works, but to me, it feels like the Libero is tagged as a defender so can't break forward enough as the ME doesn't allow it, the same with a RMD, they're a wide player so can't come in field that much. Might be down to how marking works under the hood, I've no idea. I feel similar with AMC's too, they're midfielders under the hood so they get treated by the ME in that way. See GK's above too. Maybe with the new wide centre backs, these "lines" have been blurred a little? The Target man, haven't used this role for 10 years but someone mentioned them yesterday so I guess it's the same. They're supposed to have long balls lumped to them & crosses aimed at them, I've not seen this, if you play them as AF(A) they get the same amount of aerial action  

- Headers, some variety to attacking headers here would be nice too, the way the ME shows you a header's failed to hit the target is to show a 50 pence head header over the bar, that's pretty much it. Like, every attacking header is aimed at the top corner, I've been playing a fair bit of FM11 lately & there's actually headers at the ground, you know those powerful headers at the keeper's feet? Simple but adds some variety & looks awesome  

- Overhead kicks & tricks, not a big deal but these used to exist. Who doesn't like an overhead kick every now & then? Tricks, every loves them, show skilled and technical players beat his man in different ways instead of just nudging the ball past him    

- Wide areas still dominate, FM21 improved this ten fold but it's still the case, I won't go on about it but it ties in with things like acceleration in the ME are "rewarded" more than technical & mental attributes. Like, the ME can't handle top level intelligence players that lack pace like say a Thomas Muller but bang average players with pace are effective   

- Key passes, take them off set pieces! This is an exploit & skews player ratings. Oh look, my left back got an 8.5, awesome, look at hits stats & he got 12 key passes! Awesome! Oh look, they're all freekicks & corners. Just throw a damp squid on it 

- While I'm at player ratings, give the defensive midfielders some love. Match ratings affect a lot in this game, if we've played well & won, most of the times the player on a sub 7.0 rating will be my defensive midfielder ( DM or CM). He's done his job just as well as anyone. Keepers & defenders get their ratings inflated for a clean sheet, so should he. Again, he'll be a midfielder, so he's rated like every other midfielder & is expected to make assists & key passes when he doesn't have to do that at all.  You could just stick them on set pieces  

- Match & players stats, to be brought in line with actual matches. It's immersion breaking  Loads here to go on about so I won't  

-Set Pieces, mainly for throw ins, if I want my central midfielder coming short for throw ins, that's what I want to happen, it's my AMC that comes short for them every single time 

- Assists for winning a scored penalty or freekick. Most of the football stat sites I check credit these players for these & FM used to for at least penalties. Again it ties in with match ratings, players should get the credit for these sort of things. 

- the pre assist, these are just as important as the assist at times yet the player gets zero credit for them. I don't think anyone cares for these in real life football but some recognition here would be nice, especially when set piece takers get so much credit here 

I could go on forever about the ME & other things. Like I'd completely rework Tactics, I don't think they're newb friendly at all, like for example someone starts as Liverpool, they want to play an Attacking short passing style of play so they click Attacking & shorter passing, They won't pick up that their passing is not short at all, it's just in line with the Balanced mentality. The same with defensive tactics, right, I'm going to park the bus & counter attack so they go defensive & click counter  & they get crushed 5-0. The more defensive the mentality, the shorter the passing, the higher the mentality the more direct the passing, I don't think it should work like that 

I've waffled enough, the match is great & heading in the right direction, I've seen some of the best FM football I've ever seen in this FM & hope it continues to improve in FM22

Edited October 12, 2021 by Johnny Ace

[ImDaWeasel]

13 minutes ago, Johnny Ace said:

All in in all, I've enjoyed FM21 a lot more than 19 or 20

I'm not too fussed about the off the pitch stuff, the UI is largely forgotten as that's sorted with a skin. Player interactions are still a bit wonky 

On the pitch, the FM21 ME is pretty damn good, I won't go into much detail because I've moaned or logged them already but a few things do annoy me:

- Goalkeepers - in some 1500 hours of playing, I've never once seen goalkeeper sent off or injured during a game (in a full detail league), not once have I had a keeper on the bench. Some goalkeeper drama would be nice, even if it is only once every 250 games. (*As I'm typing this I've had a notification from Reddit with someone saying the same thing)  Sweeper keepers, never dribble out of the box with the ball or significantly come off their lines to close down an oncoming player. They're just boring. Eccentricity & Flair in keepers mean pretty much nothing, the occasional "mad keeper" moment would be nice. From the FM22 previews, this is looking promising

- Goalkeeper distribution, in my main saves I've used nothing more than SK(D) because of how bad the (S &  A) distribution was, I'm not sure if it was ever fixed but it was maddening when they've worked perfectly fine in previous FMs

- Roles, some roles just don't do what they say on the tin, namely the Libero & Raumdeuter. Not that I know anything about how the ME works, but to me, it feels like the Libero is tagged as a defender so can't break forward enough as the ME doesn't allow it, the same with a RMD, they're a wide player so can't come in field that much. Might be down to how marking works under the hood, I've no idea. I feel similar with AMC's too, they're midfielders under the hood so they get treated by the ME in that way. See GK's above too. Maybe with the new wide centre backs, these "lines" have been blurred a little? The Target man, haven't used this role for 10 years but someone mentioned them yesterday so I guess it's the same. They're supposed to have long balls lumped to them & crosses aimed at them, I've not seen this, if you play them as AF(A) they get the same amount of aerial action  

- Headers, some variety to attacking headers here would be nice too, the way the ME shows you a header's failed to hit the target is to show a 50 pence head header over the bar, that's pretty much it. Like, every attacking header is aimed at the top corner, I've been playing a fair bit of FM11 lately & there's actually headers at the ground, you know those powerful headers at the keeper's feet? Simple but adds some variety & looks awesome  

- Overhead kicks & tricks, not a big deal but these used to exist. Who doesn't like an overhead kick every now & then? Tricks, every loves them, show skilled and technical players beat his man in different ways instead of just nudging the ball past him    

- Wide areas still dominate, FM21 improved this ten fold but it's still the case, I won't go on about it but it ties in with things like acceleration in the ME are "rewarded" more than technical & mental attributes. Like, the ME can't handle top level intelligence players that lack pace like say a Thomas Muller but bang average players with pace are effective   

- Key passes, take them off set pieces! This is an exploit & skews player ratings. Oh look, my left back got an 8.5, awesome, look at hits stats & he got 12 key passes! Awesome! Oh look, they're all freekicks & corners. Just throw a damp squid on it 

- While I'm at player ratings, give the defensive midfielders some love. Match ratings affect a lot in this game, if we've played well & won, most of the times the player on a sub 7.0 rating will be my defensive midfielder ( DM or CM). He's done his job just as well as anyone. Keepers & defenders get their ratings inflated for a clean sheet, so should he. Again, he'll be a midfielder, so he's rated like every other midfielder & is expected to make assists & key passes when he doesn't have to do that at all.  You could just stick them on set pieces  

- Match & players stats, to be brought in line with actual matches. It's immersion breaking  Loads here to go on about so I won't  

-Set Pieces, mainly for throw ins, if I want my central midfielder coming short for throw ins, that's what I want to happen, it's my AMC that comes short for them every single time 

- Assists for winning a scored penalty or freekick. Most of the football stat sites I check credit these players for these & FM used to for at least penalties. Again it ties in with match ratings, players should get the credit for these sort of things. 

- the pre assist, these are just as important as the assist at times yet the player gets zero credit for them. I don't think anyone cares for these in real life football but some recognition here would be nice, especially when set piece takers get so much credit here 

I could go on forever about the ME & other things. Like I'd completely rework Tactics, I don't think they're newb friendly at all, like for example someone starts as Liverpool, they want to play an Attacking short passing style of play so they click Attacking & shorter passing, They won't pick up that their passing is not short at all, it's just in line with the Balanced mentality. The same with defensive tactics, right, I'm going to park the bus & counter attack so they go defensive & click counter  & they get crushed 5-0. The more defensive the mentality, the shorter the passing, the higher the mentality the more direct the passing, I don't think it should work like that 

I've waffled enough, the match is great & heading in the right direction, I've seen some of the best FM football I've ever seen in this FM & hope it continues to improve in FM22

Good post.

21 was a pretty solid effort considering how last year went for SI. 

Only big gripe I still have with 21 is the rating system. Totally went down the toilet this past year. They slightly fixed it half way through but still massive issues with players in certain positions along set piece takers and key passes. 

Really felt for my full backs, playmakers and holding midfielders who didn't take set pieces. Winning trebles and going undefeated yet still disciplining and fining them every couple of weeks. Their sacrifice last year will hopefully not be in vain this year.

[Dan_987]

35 minutes ago, Johnny Ace said:

- While I'm at player ratings, give the defensive midfielders some love. Match ratings affect a lot in this game, if we've played well & won, most of the times the player on a sub 7.0 rating will be my defensive midfielder ( DM or CM). He's done his job just s well as anyone. Keepers & defenders get their ratings inflated for a clean sheet, so should he. Again, he'll be a midfielder, so he's rated like every other midfielder & is expected to make assists & key passes when he doesn't have to do that at all.  You could just stick them on set pieces  

Great summary there. FM21 been my favourite of recent editions. Installed a few of the older versions of FM last night - the ME and ability to play more realistically vastly improved.

Agree with the Player Match Ratings unfortunately. My CM (Ball Winning - Def) watching him on Full Match is bossing the midfield, slide tackling & simple passes always gets 6.5-6.8 & a yellow card!  Full Backs even worse.. usually 6.0 to 6.5 (fans keep complaining and telling me to drop them, I rotate them, I fine them, I upgrade to best FB's in Division but still struggle to reach 7.0) . Centre Backs, Wide Wingers and most advanced Forward of the two, constantly banging out the 7.0-8.0's. 

 

[Johnny Ace]

2 minutes ago, Dan_987 said:

Great summary there. FM21 been my favourite of recent editions. Installed a few of the older versions of FM last night - the ME and ability to play more realistically vastly improved.

Agree with the Player Match Ratings unfortunately. My CM (Ball Winning - Def) watching him on Full Match is bossing the midfield, slide tackling & simple passes always gets 6.5-6.8 & a yellow card!  Full Backs even worse.. usually 6.0 to 6.5 (fans keep complaining and telling me to drop them, I rotate them, I fine them, I upgrade to best FB's in Division but still struggle to reach 7.0) . Centre Backs, Wide Wingers and most advanced Forward of the two, constantly banging out the 7.0-8.0's. 

 

I'm absolutely fine for FBs but like I said above, both are pretty bad for the level but they're rapid & physical so they do alright in the ratings. My left back, a FB(A) (a Barbados international so you can tell how good he is) was doing well in the ratings because he pops off the odd goal & assist.   

The ratings for central midfielders on defend has been a problem for years, I think they should be rated with defenders on things like clean sheets, tackles, headers won & interceptions because unless they assist, wrack up key passes or score, they're unfairly rated average or below

Spot on about the rest too, strikers, wide attackers & centre backs are all rated pretty fairly.  

[ImDaWeasel]

19 minutes ago, Dan_987 said:

Great summary there. FM21 been my favourite of recent editions. Installed a few of the older versions of FM last night - the ME and ability to play more realistically vastly improved.

Agree with the Player Match Ratings unfortunately. My CM (Ball Winning - Def) watching him on Full Match is bossing the midfield, slide tackling & simple passes always gets 6.5-6.8 & a yellow card!  Full Backs even worse.. usually 6.0 to 6.5 (fans keep complaining and telling me to drop them, I rotate them, I fine them, I upgrade to best FB's in Division but still struggle to reach 7.0) . Centre Backs, Wide Wingers and most advanced Forward of the two, constantly banging out the 7.0-8.0's. 

 

I know it's been the corner stone of football manager since the beginning but with their new way of how ratings decrease and increase, I think it should be totally gutted out and started afresh with every player starting at 5 and working their way from there. Theres just too little room for manouver when your dominating ball winning midfielder scores 6.3 and gets disciplined vs a 1 goal winning striker who scores 7.0 and gets praised. 

[Johnny Ace]

5 hours ago, ImDaWeasel said:

I know it's been the corner stone of football manager since the beginning but with their new way of how ratings decrease and increase, I think it should be totally gutted out and started afresh with every player starting at 5 and working their way from there. Theres just too little room for manouver when your dominating ball winning midfielder scores 6.3 and gets disciplined vs a 1 goal winning striker who scores 7.0 and gets praised. 

On this note, I had a striker come off the bench in a game last night for 4 minutes, he made one pass & scored one goal in a 1-0 win, match rating 7.2. CM(D) who played the 90 minutes, did everything I wanted of him, a 6.7

ETA: Sorry, it was a 6.8 for the midfielder, a 7.7 for the striker who touched the ball twice

Edited October 12, 2021 by Johnny Ace

[autohoratio]

1 hour ago, ImDaWeasel said:

I know it's been the corner stone of football manager since the beginning but with their new way of how ratings decrease and increase, I think it should be totally gutted out and started afresh with every player starting at 5 and working their way from there. Theres just too little room for manouver when your dominating ball winning midfielder scores 6.3 and gets disciplined vs a 1 goal winning striker who scores 7.0 and gets praised. 

Completely agree; right now ratings 1-5 are completely pointless, and ~99% of ratings will be in the 6-9 range.