El Payaso

This is well-written. I would have nothing against having a more streamlined version of the game for those who think they need it but I'd much rather see more effort put on the full fat version of the game and making some if the big features of it more comprehensive and challenging. For example training is something that should be a huge part of managing a football team but currently you can practically leave it as it is and still see no major set-backs in performances and player development. In my opinion all these bigger areas of the game should be so that you can both be successful at them but also fail miserably. That, in my opinion, should be the main focus for SI.

The reason for the first part is probably the low level of difficulty which doesn't force us to pay attention to detail and utilizing different features of the game. I don't follow streamers anymore nowadays and rarely did before but at least in the past practically none of them were actually good as managers even though they were always successful in the game. The second is something I disagree on. I don't have any spare time in my life and I have periods where I might not play FM at all for weeks. And I rarely get past season two in my saves but I would still say that instead of chopping things of and streamlining, the game would rather need more challenge and time-consuming features on many of the key areas like setting up tactics, training, scouting and team building. Even with a limited time I have and the attention that I pay to my gameplay, I could still easily have even multiple long-term save games on FM each year but sadly I don't believe that the game is that well suitable for that. And the way to fix this issue can be found from the two previous chapters of this message.

Could you still tell me what you consider as fluff? And I do agree with you on the ME things. I had a six-year hiatus from the game and was quite annoyed to see that some repetitive scenarios that practically never should happen in a game of football still were there from six years back. To see a ME that doesn't remind you of ME from years and years ago but gives you a feeling of a new game is high on my priorities too. But I would still claim that the match days are just part of the gameplay and shouldn't even be the biggest part. This means that the general gameplay should be both interesting and complex enough. I don't agree that areas like transfers, scouting, training or tactics are at a good state as they currently are.

What do you mean by this? In my opinion match days should only be one part of the game and definitely not the biggest. Other areas also need to have plenty of interesting things to do and I would definitely hope that for example creating a style of play and setting up training would have more features and that they would consume more of our time. Many things have been simplified too much on FM.

How so?

Luckily I don't see anything worrying so far in terms of features being removed. The last time I did international management was in FM 2015 where I managed Spain for two matches during my Real Oviedo save. As managing matches is probably the least likeable part of the game for me, international management really give anything extra to me as tactical tweaking is not a thing anymore on FM. Still eagerly waiting for the big announcement at the end of the month, as well as the new version of the game. Ps. Fix set pieces and add a bit better balance on how different style of plays work and you have my vote.

Hmm, not sure if a handball counts as a foul. I think the op was talking about keepers making fouls on the opposition players which is quite common source of penalties in real life.

I think these are the main parts of the latest announcement. So basically nothing yet to be excited about as the main announcement will come at the end of the month. If the later release time means that we have a fully working and polished version in our hands, then this is a good thing. I don't really know what the FMFC is but I'm hoping that this bunch of people consists of FM players who pay attention to detail and different features of the game instead of casual players who only care about winning.

It varies a lot between seasons and even saves. Don't remember the exact number but in less than a full season, I conceded between 20-25 goals from throw-ins with Torino. And with the trend I had, this number would have been gone above 30 if I had finished the season. This combined with almost every single highlight for the opposition teams starting from a set piece of some kind took the joy away from me completely. This on comprehensive highlights. The same happened also with Real Betis. Season one was okayish in terms of these but in season two things changed.

Yep and if you start looking in general what are the most successful style of plays, excluding the asymmetric meta approaches, high pressing and attacking systems are very well-represented here. I have zero doubt that I would have gotten better results on my saves with more aggressive approach. For example with my Chelsea save where I used mid-block, going to a positive or even attacking mentality away against Manchester City or Liverpool gave you better outcome than going with cautious or defensive. In real life this would have been a suicide approach against those two but in the game that salvaged us points against both of them. Come to think about it, this mentality change could well have changed my pressing intensity to high also...

You're almost tempting me to actually try it out. So far I have been too afraid to even activate the high press instruction and this has been down to what I have seen in the careers update and general feedback areas. Saying that high press is a god mode-like instructions is probably exaggerating, yes but anyway what I have seen from other users, I simply haven't even wanted to try it out. But I would still stand behind my view that high pressing systems are too effective on FM and can (and probably will) lead into unrealistic results for human players, even when not trying to play with a meta system. Even though I haven't tried this myself, I have seen enough evidence to back this view. And I have no problem at all if you don't agree with me on this. As far as I remember, you didn't see set pieces and especially throw-ins being an issue either.

It is a problem because applying a simple team instruction like "press high" leads to a scenario where your team suddenly becomes too successful. This on the other hand has nothing to do with meta approaches which are a totally different story as pressing high is a valid style of play as much as anything else. FM is not the type of game where you should have to limit yourself using valid tactical approaches just because the AI cannot deal with them. Even the developers of SI themselves had promised before the 24 version that the time of plug-and-play gegenpress tactics would be over. But that wasn't delivered. Sure, I can and will be playing with a mid or low block also in FM 2025 but the game should never be like so that if I happen to apply high press at some point, when chasing a goal for example, that I would be applying some kind of god mode for my team.

It's always going to be a lot about meta things when you talk about success on Football Manager. This is also why I have zero interest in these kind of events or following streamers or YouTubers as these simply give a really bad image of the game. Seeing things like this also often eat out lot of the motivation for me to play the game. Luckily that is usually temporary as I know that the game can be approached in a different way which also give you a totally different kind of gaming experience.

What is the point of this? The problem would be a human manager beating Liverpool with Manchester United by playing counter-press which is a likely thing to happen even in season one where Liverpool are far superior of the two teams. Counter-press is a valid approach with a strong team and with suitable players to play it out successfully.

Really interesting transfer window for you. Plenty of names that I'm not familiar with and it is nice to see you also bringing in clear and more experienced rotation/backup options instead of concentrating on wonder kids. Like I said in the beginning, it is hard to make this kind of saves with big clubs interesting to read but your approach and excellent writing is really doing it. These kind of career updates really keep the fire going for me while waiting for FM 2025.