Tarmon

I'm loving the target system in the new FM, and I'd love to see more of it. Having it part of the contract process, and the criticize process is good. But I think limiting it to that is restrictive for such a good system. My thought was to replace the individual training with an enhanced target system. Instead of saying "Work on your strength," you could set individual strength targets. "Increase your bench by 10lbs in the next 2 months, and you'll get your playing time bumped up one notch." You could even implement reverse targets, like "If your 100 meter time drops by .1 seconds, your playing time gets bumped down one notch." Generically you could just use the existing attribute system, rather than really specific targets (if you strength attribute increases by 1, you get extra playing time); but in my head cannon it's more specific. How receptive they are to those targets, and how well they achieve them would obviously be affected by personality traits. Competitive traits would feed off targets, while less competitive personalities wouldn't. Obviously this is something you could just hand off to your coaches, but this would give you much greater control in the instances where you are trying to grow wonderkids, or keep older players playing just a little bit longer.

Aside from not improving set piece set-up, I think you kind of missed the boat in the squad planner this year. I think it would be a core feature going forward if you could integrate it, either into, or with the tactics screen. Right now it sort of feels like a theoretical exercise about what your team could do. And it's pretty irritating that changing things in the squad planner doesn't do anything in the tactics screen. You just have to do it all over again. Instead, if you tie the drop-down boxes, on the tactics screen, directly to the squad planner, you can control what options pop up in that drop-down menu in the tactics screen. Or conversely, just merge the two screens completely, using the squad planner aesthetic, and planning functionality, with the tactics screen functionality. Additionally, you could tie squad recommendations from the assistant manager, to the squad planner; giving the assistant manager a catered pool of players to draw from at each position, ranked by the player's preference. Add in a few ways to filter, and your assistant manager will effectively keep the squad rotated. For instance, tell the assistant manager to play the second string if the first string doesn't have a full green heart; and the third string every 5th match. That way, if the player isn't paying attention, you don't end up accidentally putting out people you don't intend. As for set piece set-up, you don't have to do a lot to fix it. It doesn't need a whole redesign. If you just make it so that all the positions are available all the time, instead of only when stacking, it would go a really long way toward fixing it. I'm going to try to explain my frustration with the set piece screen, but it's a bit convoluted, so bear with me. In the image I sent, let's focus on the DL and DR that are in the SB postition. If I were to, say change the DL to No Specific Instructions, it would move the DL to the right side of DR. That is one of the most irritating things in the game. It happens a lot in the GF and Marking lines too. Changing the role, will move the position somewhere you don't want it. This happens because each position is only available when the previous position in the stack is filled. If you simply didn't tie the positions to a stack, and let the player place his team in those exact same positions, it would be immeasurably less frustrating. Simply having each position completely independent would ensure that setting up set pieces is manageable and fun; rather than a tedious, frustrating, grind that we dread doing.