Ataraxia

Yes, I had thought about that, but since I'm in the middle of a current save and spending my available time on that, I was hoping that I might get an answer here, rather than have to conduct a bunch of experiments. But, if no one responds, I'll give it a try. I've asked this question in multiple places and even tried sending an email to SI, but no one has responded anywhere. So maybe people just don't know.

Yes, thanks for pointing this out. I had not seen the latest development update yet, but I found reference to those details elsewhere, right after I posted my message yesterday. Of course, there is never a guarantee, as I've seen some other sports sims plan to add or restore a feature in the past but then leave it out of the product in favor of other priorities. But as someone who goes back to CM 97/98, I trust Miles, and I look forward to seeing international management restored in FM26. However, like many others I've seen posting all across the Internet, I'm planning to skip FM25 for now. As someone who's been a beta tester for other products and prefers to support new development, I've always bought and used new versions straight away, and I've never been the sort to wait until all patches are released or initial bugs are worked out. But I would rather avoid missing features and initial problems that will inevitably stem from the major shift in FM's development. So, it's perhaps telling that this will be the first time that I've ever bypassed the initial release of a game that I'm actively playing. I suspect that some who are planning to skip FM25 will get on board once they see videos of people playing the game and get excited about new features and improvements. But I'm happy to keep playing FM24 until FM26, especially since I was planning to start doing some new international management soon.

I would say precisely the same thing about the data that SI has collected and analyzed. Since SI is only analyzing data collected under very specific and somewhat limited game conditions, and since users can refuse to share data with SI and other platforms, the numbers are not properly representative of the entire user base and how people use the game under the full breadth of use cases and conditions. It's a start, and it's convenient, but the previous post above shows that we already have clear indicators to suggest that SI's data is inaccurate. The better option is always to conduct large-scale, professional, digital survey research with your customer base, and that's what SI should be doing. As someone who has spent part of his career in market research and as a market analysis, I can assure you that conducting more rigorous, professional online survey research produces far more reliable and credible data. However, if SI can't complete the features or get them working on time, the data doesn't matter anyway. Just be transparent with your customers and make it clear whether you plan to eventually restore the feature, permanently remove it, or start charging people to access it in the future. I suspect that the real issue here is that the development team fell behind and can't complete the international management feature on time or correctly. So, the 5% data point is a convenient way to excuse and downplay the feature's removal for the time being. Hopefully we'll see it restored within a few months of FM25's release. I certainly hope we're not going to see a permanent removal, and I hope we won't be required to pay a separate fee to add the feature once it's available.

I tried asking this in another thread, but it has received no answer, and I'm not sure if people noticed the question. In the FM database, there are many clubs with a 0, 1 or -1 for their available funds and/or their transfer budgets. I believe these are numbers that FM uses to calculate a random balance or budget, based on what each of those numbers represents. For example, a 0 might mean that FM sets a random number based on the club's size and division. Maybe a -1 gives the club poor finances, and a 1 gives the club relatively stable or good finances. But I'm not sure, and I'd like to know exactly what these numbers mean and how FM uses them. Thanks for any help you can provide.

What does a 0, 1 and -1 mean for transfer budgets and balances in the editor? When it's 0, I think FM sets a random amount based on the club's size and division. But I would like to know exactly what each of these numbers means and how the sim uses them to calculate budgets and balances. I have noticed that some obscure leagues have many teams with a 1 for their transfer budget, and some have a -1. Thanks for any help you can provide.