Suggestions for Football Manager 2025 from a 22-Year Veteran ( For Developers)

[Pafnus]

Hello, dear FM developers. I'm Pafnus, and I've been playing Football Manager for about 22 years. My love for the game began 22 years ago when, as a little kid, I was rummaging through my older cousin's CDs with my other cousin and stumbled upon CM 3. My passion for this game, where we used to spend nights building careers with Martín Palermo’s Boca Juniors, has continued uninterrupted to this day. I've bought and played every game in the series every year.

The biggest criticism of Football Manager has always been that the game is the same every year. This criticism grew so much that the development team announced they would completely overhaul the game for the 2025 version. However, I don't actually agree with these criticisms. Football Manager is an annually released game, and it's unreasonable to expect radical changes in a game that releases new versions every year. On the other hand, if you play versions from 5-6 years ago, you can see how much the game has evolved, little by little. I noticed this the last time I played FM 2018.

However, I do have a few small criticisms and suggestions that I think would help and add flavor to the game. I would be very happy if you read them.

1. Player Ratings Issue: Yes, every season when the new version of FM is released, there’s always a debate about player ratings. Balancing these ratings is a very tough job, especially when working with thousands of scouts from around the world, and I think FM has done a good job in this regard so far. But I believe the real issue lies in the profiles of players who get transferred. Except for sensational transfers, the profiles of transferred players are usually not updated. The scouts from the old team don’t update the profile because the player has left, and the scouts from the new team don’t touch it because the player has just arrived. As a result, players’ profiles can continue without being updated. I think it would be beneficial for the development team to establish strict and clear rules on this matter.

2. Pre-Game Editor Issue: Yes, there is a detailed editor in the game, but it’s very difficult to use. Creating leagues and cups, making edits, and setting rules in the pre-game editor is quite challenging and not user-friendly. I believe redesigning the editor with a simple and user-friendly interface could be very beneficial.

3. Versus Mode and Quick Cup and League Modes: I was very sad when I read that the versus mode would be removed in the new game. The versus mode was my lab. It was a great pleasure to take any team, create small leagues and cups for myself, and challenge myself by giving other teams to the AI. Yes, the career mode is a great mode, but it’s a different joy to take a team like Braga and, instead of playing in the Portuguese league, create a short 8-10 team league, Champions League, or knockout cup for yourself and manage many different teams to challenge yourself. Also, it was really nice to compare teams in the career mode that wouldn’t normally face each other in real life, like Leeds United vs. Salernitana, Glasgow Rangers vs. Bournemouth, or Lyon vs. Hertha Berlin. Wouldn’t it be fun to do a Premier League challenge with Benfica or take RB Leipzig and compete in Serie A? Don’t you want to see Porto compete against La Liga teams, for example? I think it would be a real pleasure to do these kinds of things with original squads in a fantasy game where we can’t do them in real life. In this regard, I believe not removing the versus mode and adding more diverse cup and league modes would add a lot of fun to the game.

4. Game Release Date: Yes, I’m really concerned about this. Waiting until November every year for the latest FM game is torture for me. Releasing the game’s beta at least in September would greatly increase the excitement.

Dear Football Manager developers, if you’ve read my message, thank you very much for reading it and for developing and presenting us with this beautiful game. We Football Manager addicts are eagerly awaiting the new game.

Best regards...

 

[Brentford Alan]

Regarding point 1, there are strict and clear rules already, the outgoing researcher reviews and updates the transferred player IF required and adds the transfer details, the incoming researcher is free to amend any obvious errors with attribute ratings or other areas like player histories for example.

[snowofman]

Moved to Feature request

[Pafnus]

7 saat önce, Brentford Alan said:

Regarding point 1, there are strict and clear rules already, the outgoing researcher reviews and updates the transferred player IF required and adds the transfer details, the incoming researcher is free to amend any obvious errors with attribute ratings or other areas like player histories for example

Yes, I know there may be strict rules regarding this. However, I’ve noticed that the profiles of incoming and outgoing transfers in the Turkish league remain unchanged. I mentioned this because I've seen many examples of it. When we ask why, the scout team says they won’t touch the profiles of new transfers. If the scout team of the former club doesn't edit them either, the profile remains outdated.