TheArsenal63

Are you going to stick to your regular 2 update cycle per edition, and are we expecting the next update in march as usual?

Wow, I thought at least one of the game breaking bugs would be fixed, even one. No ME changes, well I guess I will come back in march.

i definitely don't think it's just older generation, I never said that. My point is to attract the younger FOOTBALL fan crows, the overlap between young people who play video games AND are football fans usually means they are fans of FIFA. If SI want to attract them, unfortunately they will have to up the graphics.

Not at all, young football fans are usually the FIFA crowd nowadays. I did caveat that. And people who play Rimworld who are not football fans are not playing football manager.

Then they might have an even worse time of it, since the younger crowd wouldn't accept the graphics of the game. If they are actually going after that demographic, then they are used to FIFA. I think the "oldies" are much more accepting of the Playstation 1 style graphics but if SI truly want to chase the younger gamers (especially in the sports area) then they will have to up the graphics.

Yikes, no patch notes for release. But I think at least with the worst of the issues (defenders going walkies leaving huge gaps in defense, long balls, long shots and the absurd amount of turnovers) then it should be apparent after a few matches if those have been fixed. I have a sneaky suspicion they have had a lot more issues with the defending than we think, So i don't think all of those will be solved at launch. We will see but some of those are huge issues that break immersion, it's hard to take a game seriously when your defenders decide to go have a chat with the crowd whilst there is a counter attack on .

Does anyone know what time the full release is on Tuesday? Is it midnight or evening?

If they fixed the defending of space, long balls and long shots for FM23, then I would never go back to FM 22. This game's chaotic nature of the deflections, the finishing improvements (types of finishing , not rate) the fact that players actually cross the ball now instead of cutting it back to the supporting midfielder, there's so many good things. I really hope it is fixed on release, there's so much to like but it is let down by this perpetual issue (has happened at launch with other versions) where the AI has a get out jail card when it doesn't know what to do, namely shooting aimlessly and booting the ball up field. Here's to a positive release day patch, otherwise I will wait for March.

Because it's clear they've never done a clean up of the ME code, they are building on top of legacy code every year without making it easier to update their match engine. That's my best guess, I work in software and there are some truly ancient applications that clients refuse to spend the time and resource needed to refactor it, at least to make it easier to update and fix for future releases. So this is what you get, spaghetti code where fixing one thing breaks something else that was a dependent. Software and games are not exact comparisons, but to me this is going to continue to happen because the ME is basically a huge balancing act, just imagine a 1000 tiny bandaids to try and make something work together, when really the actual issue is that the code should be refactored to improve adaptability of the AI to adjust to new concepts introduced. But I assume that they don't want to complicate it too much because they want to keep supporting ancient machines. That's why it takes me a year to introduce even the smallest improvements, and inevitably they break parts of their code that used to work with the old ME, made defending better with less space? Well good luck now because your CB will launch the ball into the air first change they get because they were not coded to take into account what would happen when space is reduced to that extent. Basic example but imagine that applied to every role. Make the AI able to adapt better to your changes, and you wouldn't have to patch it with all these bandaids.

Nothing to do with my tactics, I've played thousands of hours of FM over the years and I'm usually on the ball with beta issues because I spend too much of my time playing it when I am free. You can reduce long balls to an extent but by doing that, you invariably lose part of your build up from deep in your quest to fix a problem that should not exist (they might fix it by release, at least I hope so). The ME is good for the most part but it's let down because in their quest to create more turnovers ,thus leading to more chaos, they removed user agency and player individuality (I've tested bad vs world class players as well and they all do the same things). Been on this forum before and have had my share of the "it's your tactics" folks on here, only to be proven right when SI inevitably release a patch to the issues that we all mention here. Let's hope they fix it at release, otherwise it might be a long wait to march.

Long balls from players with 0 pressure on them (using exactly the same possesion formation as last year) is just not fun to watch. Long shots too, to a lesser extent. ME feels like a basketball game and there is very short passing chains before the ball is inevitably launched into the stratosphere. Also CBs have gone back to not being able to defend balls over the top no matter what you do, couple that with your keeper staying on his line and you have a recipe for a frustrating ME. In their quest for chaotic football, that's the only flavour they've given us. This game in general has a weird attitude towards positional and possesion football. The game has struggled for many years to replicate the sort of tactical battle for positional superiority that exists in reall football today. Creating overloads through slower build up all the way to the box. It just doesn't replicate that that well.

FM is unique in that the ME is so complicated to fix. Usually it takes until March for them to make meaningful change to the ME. That's why it seems to me it needs an invite only alpha phase of the ME. The ME is so close to being excellent, for the first time, the feel of a real football match is there. But I think either they are already aware of the long ball, long shots and lack of central play and are attempting to fix before release, or their own testing just isn't enough to continuously pick up on potentially immersion breaking bugs. Maybe an invite only Alpha already exists and we just don't know about it, but whatever testing is being done at the moment before release is clearly not pointing out some very very obvious and glaring issues. Hope it's something they will address at release, but I've seen plenty of evidence it takes them till the march update to fix the ME. If that happens, I would be gutted because apart from these issues, it really does behave like a real football broadcast for the first time. Let's hope for a release fix.

1. Transition between defence and midfield is very much an issue, it happens but it's bad. 2. Long balls lumped up to wingers constantly, every player also heavily favours the switch to the opposite flank even when under no pressure and 2/3 players next to them. 3. Too many long shots, shot selection is great when in the box, but decision making outside the box is very bad, they just keep taking long shots. The way FM have implemented this seems like they want your players to spend less time in safe possession, so this means the ME tries to force turnovers by shortening the time spent in long passing chains. That seems to be why players are choosing long balls (ball in the air = more challenges = higher likelihood of turnover). Same for shooting, player is outside the box, no one near him and instead of recycling possession, he takes a long shot. Final thing I will mention which contributing to the long balls is that players seem very reluctant to come short for the ball, so you have this very fixed positions on the pitch and ME is forced to find wide players because players want to remain where they are. It's a good thing sometimes because we get wide and high wide players which the game needed, it's a very bad thing for the midfielders or many other roles. I'll wait for full release and hope they fix the heavy reliance on this turnover/counter fest we have at the moment, it's 1 flavour at the moment and needs balancing.

ME is so close to being excellent. Two major issues holding it back : 1. ME using long balls as a crutch to transition from defence to attack, central passes are very rare again, most of the time, player on the ball refuses to play to player unless in acres of space. 2. Which brings me to my second point, the ME sees the wide players not being marked with space and so uses them as a crutch to escape pressure or a settled defence. Also ME is playing long balls to wide players from too central a position. Real players do use long passes to wingers to transition straight to attack but they do it from one side of the pitch to the other, this is because the opposition team has shifted to your side, so sometimes there is an opportunity that they have shifted too far and the opposite wide player is free, hence the switch. But CBs are spamming that long balls from everywhere because they see it as less risky than playing the ball through the lines ,for whatever reason. CBs are the main culprit here but other players also use it too often. 3. Game is too direct, settled possession is very very difficult. Turnovers are very high, players will keep ball deep in their own half or around the center line, but anything above that means players play direct passes. Whether it's the improved defending (which should accompany improved decision making) or it's a bug, the gameplay is one flavor at the moment and it needs tweaking. Especially build up which is way too direct at the moment.

The same tactic I used in FM22 to create cutbacks and with passes into the box from settled possesion, seems to be struggling to produce a single chance from a period of controlled possesion. It's all very back and forth, that's good, it's 1 element of football that was missing from FM, but they might have over done it. I'll use some of their own default tactics and see what happens, it's possible my FM22 tactic just doesn't work the same here.

ME is definately different, i would even say extremely different. But it does introduce it's own issues. Currently all my goals are coming from turnovers leading to counters and long balls from the CBs who don't seem to know how to play any other pass. Seems like there is something not right with the transition from defence to midfield, game is struggling to have settled possession higher up the pitch. It's all very direct so far. Again it could be familiarity or tactics, but the game doesn't have enough settled possesion, most attacks coming from turnovers. Players also wanting to play it direct soon as they have space in the middle, rather than going wide and working the chance. More testing to do though.

So far, they have nailed the uncertainty of football, the passes are looser, shots get blocked more into rebounds, more realistic shot selection as well. But the players do seem to have way too much long shot selection, they do it too often and too early. Also it's very difficult to ppay through the middle, I'm going to test if this just familiarity or weak players. Finally counters seem to be most of ny goals at the moment even though i am playing with work the ball into the box with more possesion. I hope the game doesn't rely too much on it's new shiny features. We still need a viable possesion based controlled game, every game doesn't need to be a pin ball machine. Early days though.

The changes are enough for me to justify a £35 a year fee for probably one of the only games I buy every year (this is the most important part, I don't buy much if any games except FM so that's my whole budget). I can justify that to myself, however if it actually was a £60+ game for what they are giving us, I would definitely not be buying it. The price is currently low enough and the features just about enough to justify it . One day it won't be worth what they put out vs the price, as I imagine it will keep increasing, then I think I will be done. Plus, they own the market and they know it, so they control how much you get and set the price, see what happened with Intel or Nvidia until AMD started putting pressure on them. Inevitably companies with no competition will start to slow down improvement, you have to realise they are a corporation with financial interests, if they can give you 2 good features this year instead of 4 , so that they can save them for another year or so, then they absolutely will. It buys them time and therefore more money. SI are not benevolent, they are here to make money and to look after the long term financial interests of their company, so it makes a depressing sense.

Squad planner is more of a visual aid for users than a backend feature, it just takes what people used to do outside of the game over a few seasons and brings it in. There isn't any actual functionality that's new. The AI already has some system like this where they look for comparable players of the same ability for the same role to replace others and highly doubt this changes. The squad planner is leaving it to the players to do the heavy mental work of designing their squad over a few years, imagine taking this concept and trying to apply that to every team in the game, loading times would sky rocket. It would be nice but it's a bit of a pipe dream tbh.

Excited about match engine defensive improvements and AI manager (if they do what they say that is). Recruitment/planner is fine, I never really cared to be honest but it might get me to use it if it makes squad planning more fun. Everything else could be done in a few weeks by any competent developer familiar with their code base, it's literally window dressing and a new coat of paint for stats they've always had. Oddly enough I don't mind this, I always said SI need to make the game more of an immersive experience than an inbox manager. But it's really a few sprints worth of work here and very disappointing for a years work with all the staff they have. Same arguments trotted out for lack of even a tiny graphics improvement (maybe not have trees that look like they're from the unity asset store? is that too much to ask?), and I'm sure the same arguments will be used for the next 5 years because it's not really based on anything so can't be argued against. Some are also selling hopium that one day they will introduce game changing graphics/animations because of x, dangling the carrot and all that. SI have a monopoly, it makes me sad that they decided this is the road they want to go down but I can't blame them when people will keep buying it no matter what (including me frustratingly, it's probably one of, if not the only, game I buy every year), there's no competition, zero ,nada. They will drip feed content masked as new games yearly because yearly released games can never really be complete, they would be out of business in a few years or not sell as much otherwise, that's how sports games work. Think features over a decade rather than years, every sports game does this, I used to be frustrated at this but I get it from a business point of view. You have to keep the fan base hoping for more, just that last feature they want is just a version away if you wait. I just hope the match engine is good and they've fixed the finishing, long balls over your defense when in a settled backline (this scenario is rare in football nowadays for a settled backline in a midblock but the match engine doesn't care and your keeper will watch the ball infront of his nose and won't come for it) and also fullbacks turning away from having an ocean of space infront of them so they can cut back to the supporting midfielder instead of the cross. If they really knock it out of the park with the ME then I will be grudgingly satisfied.

Games have almost always had a graphics setting, why not have the top end graphics be for high spec PCs, just have it automatically detect the users graphics card and adjust accordingly. I assume this already happens but just increase the quality of what the highest setting can do. The match engine sim part is trickier though because it can noticeably impact your experience if you increase the complexity of the engine and thus the requirement from the CPU, then players with low specs will have a bad time with slow background simming and not many nations etc. The one thing I can't excuse (also why should we, they are a very very wealthy company with zero competitors, hold them accountable, it's ok to do that) is the absolute absence of good lighting in this game. Everything looks so bad , even baked lighting for different times of the day that match takes place would be better than what we have. The stadiums look like something I would come up with when I was in university, it's 2022 and there are indie games with low spec requirements that look amazing graphically. And SI have 1 pitch, 1 stadium and some surrounding trees/decorations that look like someone bought them from the asset store, I'm sorry but that's honestly inexcusable. I'm not talking about the animations or the players even, just the absolutely horrendous stadiums, lighting and atmosphere. You can't even excuse it for the low spec players because you just let them keep playing the older graphics, that's what graphics settings are for, every game out there does them. The truth is probably that they make enough money already that they can't justify a graphics upgrade to whoever holds the purse, even if it would take just an intern probably a few months (possibly a year) to update the lighting, grass, stadiums etc. They can't/won't even commit to that.