NineCloudNine

Positional play has transformed my 4-3-3 for the better this year. Watching my Half Back drop between the Centre Backs, making a nice solid three, is a joy. It allows me to play CWBs on both wings. I've also had a lot of joy with an AP in the wing position, which I haven't tried before. The interaction with the CWB on his side is great. The Half Back in this setup needs to be really really good though. They are central to both attack and defence and act as a playmaker even without the designation. Gives me an even greater appreciation of what Sergio Busquets did to sew everything together for Pep's Barcelona. Having a lot of 4-3-3 fun with FM24.

If using the editor you can also add the club as a favourite (supporter at 100) and make playing at the club a career plan. You can also add ‘does not want to play in…’ to career plans for lots of countries or clubs that might want to sign him. As well as loyalty and ambition having an effect, low controversy and high temperament will help. Having friends and preferred teammates (which you can also add in the editor) at the club also helps. As, of course, does paying them well to start regularly in their preferred role in a winning team!

Each year I spend roughly equal time on Barcelona, Liverpool and Milan (my three childhood teams, which gives you a clue as to how old I am!). I probably have around 5 saves for each during the year, with each save pursuing a particular reality (eg only UK&I for Liverpool, must sign three Dutch stars for Milan, only allowed free transfers or youth team for Barcelona) or recreating a particular player (Puyol, Maldini, the real Ronaldo). I spend nearly as much time in the pre-game editor as I do in the game. Saves rarely progress past 3 or 4 seasons because by then I have lost control of the narrative I had in mind. Hard to imagine a more different approach than most of the other people in this thread !

Why?

I wish you could find a way to stop undermining your insightful answers with snark. To build on what you say here, another possible reason none of the answers worked is if none of them are true. I don’t know if the code here is smart enough, but in theory each of those possible answers is easily testable against facts which would be available to the players.

Other comments in that thread suggest that only starts count towards player contentment with their playing time. If that was true then, I don't think it's true now. I regularly keep players happy with 80% of their appearences coming off the bench. I do try to bring subs on before 75mins as much as possible, so they get a rating. It might be that this makes a difference.

Which answer is actually true?

Yerson Chacon, 20yr old Venezuelan winger picked up on a free for Barcelona who promptly tore La Liga up. I suspect some high rolls on random attributes.

That would be my view as well.

Almost. It is a good example of what I describe - difficulty in CM is as 'simple' as tweaking some numbers. But that excellent mod is a one-off difficulty increase, which is a lot less complex than multiple SI-endorsed difficulty levels. The work to do that by SI would be - IMO - disproportionate to the benefit, since people who find it too easy can (as you say) download realism mods while those who find it too hard already have tools to help them.

This is a really good idea. I love the idea of actually chatting tactics with my Assistant.

Because the assumption is that your fringe 20-21 yr olds are in your B team. You can use up to 4 of the players registered for the B team in any main team match. Once a B team player has played (I believe) 10 times for the main team they can't play for the B again. That should give you enough flexibility to cover for injuries/rest players/give experience to fringe players. The actual Spanish league rules here are much more complicated and depend on differences between B teams which are not reflected in FM.

(1) The ability to edit player histories and achievements via the in-game editor. I'd sell my soul for this. (2) A less fiddly views interface. (3) The entire press conference module re-written to sound less like a parody of 1970s Match of The Day.

I believe there is a tickbox in a nation’s database entry which allows or forbids dual nationality. Might that help?

You have no penetration from midfield and no support behind the IW. The left side also isn’t attacking enough to create an overload. I’d try one or more of changing the DLP to an AP, changing the IFB to an FB and/or putting the WB on attack. All three of those might be too aggressive, but any two of them should be worth a try.

Thanks! He's only a 16 yr old newgen right now but has the profile to be as good as the players you list. I expect to play him either as an AP(a) or a Treq as you suggest. My question here is more what team structure people would be ideal for getting the best out of such a player, making them the entire focus of the team. I'm sort of role-playing Carlos Bilardo in 1986, working out how to build a team around Maradona .

Yes I figured that bit out all by myself !

I've just got a newgen with 195 PA. Yes, on Christmas Day , He's a natural AP in the AM strata and has attacking stats. He can dribble, shoot long and short, pass, has explosive acceleration, high flair and is even good in the air. So, knowing no more than that...my question is...how would you build a tactic and squad around a generational talent AP(a) in the AM strata? Assume that whatever players/roles are needed, I will provide (I play with custom databases). The aim is for him to dominate games. Think Maradona in the 1986 World Cup, only for an entire season. All suggestions welcome! Thank you .

That isn't exactly what happens though is it? Player A is upset, you face them down then you get little Spt or Agn indicators by other players depending on whether they agree with Player A's complaint or not. That seems like a reasonable way to reflect dressing room divisions. Whether or not you do anything about it is up to you. I usually ignore it. I may be wrong but I don't think the showdown team meeting is ever compulsory and even if it is, you can stand your ground. Same thing with playing time complaints. I do agree that agents should have a more prominent role here and that troublesome agents would be a more realistic representation of the issue than players forming militant trade unions. That said, in most top clubs a manager has little to no say in player contracts anyway.

All games have a 'meta', without exception. It just means a particular combination of skills, builds, tactics or approaches which will tend to be more successful than others when deployed by players with equal skill. Every year's FM has a particular quirk - long shots, set pieces, certain roles - which are more powerful than in other years. That's the meta. High lines and intense pressing have been strong for several years (largely because the game implements them without the real life consequences such as injuries and player exhaustion). The 'with equal skill' caveat is very important though. The 'meta' advantage isn't always large and in a single-player game it's largely irrelevant. It matters more in PvP games where a small advantage is significant. And even there it can be overcome with skillful play, which is why we see plenty of FM players able to succeed without using flavour of the month roles or tactical approaches. That doesn't mean there's no meta, it just means that good players are able to overcome it.

Difficulty levels should be relatively simple (though not easy) to implement in a game which is entirely numbers based. Different levels could tune various numbers to up the difficulty (for example injuries, fatigue, personality wrangles, or simply a +ve or -ve multiplier to how player attributes are used in the match engine). This isn't much different to a FPS game giving enemies more HP and reducing the number of medical packs. The reason this isn't easy - despite being simple - is that it would take a lot of tuning and testing and even small changes would have unpredictable effects in a very detailed game. I'm willing to bet that significantly more people want the game to be harder than want it to be easier, so these changes would be for the benefit of a small minority, all of whom could perfectly well choose to make their own game harder through the choices described in this thread.

The biggest irritation for me is the enormous gap between what a club demands for me to loan one of their players vs what they offer to loan one of mine.

I’m having success in FM24 with IFs and attacking WB/CWBs. In previous years they seemed to trip over each other but this year the movement of the IF seems much smarter and they cut in as soon as the WB pushes up. Combined with a Half Back finally dropping in between the CBs as they should, this makes for some very sweet attacking play. I do see this aggressive cutting in more with IFs than IWs. IFs seem much more direct and aggressive. It does depend a lot on the player’s traits and PIs though. Various combinations of those can easily cause a lot of overlap between the roles.

@Dagenham_Dave and @chrisnlnz no matter how righteous your cause, no matter who is right and no matter who started it, all everyone else sees is two blokes shouting at each other in the street.

One clear change in FM24 is how many players now list ‘Winger’ as their best role even on the opposite side to their best foot. In FM23 such a player would be an Inverted Winger on their ‘wrong’ side. I suspect this is SI trying to reflect how the roles are now seen IRL. The old-school winger staying wide and banging in crosses no longer really exists, but this was the archetype for the pre-FM24 winger role.