Hi all,
My first post here. (Very) long time player. I have a couple of items of feedback and a question.
Feedback 1) yes I'm of an older generation and I'm wary of coming across as a 'gammon'. I understand (to an extent) the desire to be (seen to be) inclusive, but I also think that with these things there is a line that people should be wary of crossing where you try so hard to placate a tiny minority that you ruin things for the vast majority. An example is this press conference exchange taken word for word from the game. Journalist says, "That was Ivan Sunjic's 150th league appearance for Birmingham City. Just how important a player has he been for this club?" In one of the replies the manager refers to Ivan as 'him'. But in another reply which is the best choice for morale-building purposes it's all non-binary and says, "Ivan ought to be proud of what they've achieved and I personally hope there's still more to come from them". This is totally unrealistic and no manager IRL would word things like that. Why are these they/them statements in there when other choices refer to the player as him? They take away the realism and the sentence sounds mangled and odd.
Feedback 2) I signed a player who plays for the Tunisia international team and he was called up for the African Nations Cup. I had a rotation system that was working to a degree (despite players being confused by my team selections on a regular basis because they don't seem to understand what squad rotation is.) After a couple of weeks of the player being away for the cup, my vice captain throws a hissy-fit because 'the squad depth is not strong enough' in the centre back position, which is where the missing player usually plays. 90% of the team (apart from the centre backs) show support for the player and 'the way I have treated him' (huh?) and team morale plummets so I am forced to buy a player to reinforce in that area. Now the player is back from international duty the squad are not happy that they get less playing time because I now have an extra player that I didn't need but have to add to the rotation. This is not good IMO.
Question 1) I'd been playing FM2023 just before 2024 came out. I had read that some of the improvements were to the realism of the pitches, weather conditions and player movement/animations. I really like the new player movements/animations, but the first game I played I assumed it must be foggy weather because the players seemed a bit faded and in particular the fans looked like they were being viewed through a mild fog. But then as I played more games I realised that this wasn't fog, it seems to be the way the new ME looks. I have a PC with more than adequate spec and I have tried tinkering with the graphical settings, but I still find that compared to 2023 it's as if every matchday is a foggy day, My question - is this the same for everyone else/ Am I missing something?
I read through a few pages before posting to see if I could find anyone else discussing these, but didn't find anyone. Any advice appreciated, thanks! Edit - just found the search function and saw that some of these have been mentioned before - oops!
I've been playing around with 2023. 2024 version and 2023 save loaded into the 2024 and more issues are rearing their head (what was gegenpress in 23 is now seen as wing play in 23 save loaded into 24 version.) Add to this that the 'real names fix' doesn't work on that imported version either, I've decided that for now I will treat it like Windows OS - I'll never buy the new version just after release but will play an older version until about a year after release - so I will be playing 2023 from now on for a while. I will miss those new player models, animations and deflected shots a little but I definitely won't miss the fog in every match and the unmanagable player hissy fits about squad depth where the whole team rebels purely because a player goes away on international duty to the African nations. For the record SIgames, I am more disappointed than I have ever been and I've been playing this game for decades.