wazzaflow10

I'm curious if there's anything hidden behind the scenes that you might miss out on like certain attributes or ways the game calculates player behavior. I think when OOTP does this they say starting a new game will give you the full experience as some attributes are disabled or not used and may affect how the game is played. It doesn't seem like 24 will have much difference but curious if 25 would. Shame I already abandoned my save for 23 though. Put it in the recycle bin and apparently emptied it recently. Oh well.

Amazing you took him from the national league to the PL. How did you only manage 600k for a fee though? Seems really low unless he was out of contract?

Yeah it was definitely quirky. I never looked too hard into it tbh but that makes sense.

I could be misremembering or did something wrong. However I was starting a journey man save and wound up in africa (Forget which nation - Nigeria maybe). Took the job at the end of the season and couldn't add anyone in the first transfer window of the league that ran from Dec-Feb. No one in the league could. It was the only time i've ever ticked that box. Had to abandon the save cause half the players left and couldn't add anyone.

I was also thinking of one winger in the midfield strata and one winger in the AM strata too rather than just the straight 4-2-3-1. Never felt like the AI/ME handled that formation well so I stopped using it.

I'm sure Man Utd fans will play this way so they can sign Belllingham and Kane instead of Mount and Hojlund even if the budget doesn't allow. I'm sure in the game though Kane would probably sign a new contract unless SI set him as unwilling to do so. I think there's merits to both. The Your world gives you a fresher start and can't double dip in the summer window. That has been a minor criticism of mine. The no transfers in first window option didn't work well for teams that had their offseason from Nov/Dec to Feb/Mar. So the Your World option kind of levels the playing field a bit. It would be a good test to check out the new AI Squad building logic that's for sure. The real world though feels much less gamey though especially if you sim partially into the season before taking on a job. If i'm doing a big club save I often wait til the first manager at one of the big European clubs gets sacked (except Pep lol). I'd probably start with a real world save here just to give the clubs the expected squads.

Question for the SI team - does this upgrade to positional play and awareness improve the engine's ability to deal with asymmetric tactics? I think the general consensus was that asymmetric formations tended to have players pop up in odd positions that the AI/Engine couldn't handle or didn't expect. Are these formations more balanced now that players are more aware of their surroundings?

So do you have to be signed up for fmfc to get these new features in game? Or are they part of the full game regardless of fmfc status? Kind of dumb/annoying I have to give out marketing information to see features of a game before its released.

You can control who's covering for who based on roles and positions so long as its somewhat logical. If your goal is to create some extreme variant of total football it should fail spectacularly ever time. But SI doesn't have the time to test every single possible thing a user could do to find weaknesses/exploits. The adjustment of the DM to move across if there's an IWB on their side and a vacated area from a DM pushing forward is a massive, massive improvement. The effectiveness of that movement probably depends on the player too. I don't think you could have a player with poor positioning/OTB movement and poor physicals play that kind of role. You don't have total freedom because the AI isn't capable of creating a tactic with total freedom. WIBWOB in theory is the best answer but it doesn't work in practice because the possibilities are infinite. Give enough people enough time and someone will break the match engine. The tactics page is meant to keep users honest to a degree so that SI can create an AI that is competitive and a match engine that provides repeatable feedback. The other alternative is SI allows the AI to see the match engine under the hood and work out in game what the best tactic is with total freedom. It wouldn't take very long before the AI converges on a game breaking tactic that no one can beat. What SI is trying to do is keep the user and AI honest within the context of the match engine they've created. As the game evolves they'll evolve the engine like they've done with Pep's new tactics or the Raumdeuter 10-15 years ago. You're never going to create a never before seen tactic in this game. Its just not designed to be a free for all simulator. Maybe one day in the future with enough data on player movements and patterns of play from real life they'll tell us to go hog wild. And I'd expect unbalanced/unrealistic tactics at that stage to be severely punished.

Question I'd have for the team - in regards to player positioning/off the ball movement/rotational fluidity should we expect an increase in importance of tactical familiarity and team cohesion during match days? Have there been any adjustments in how quickly/slowly a team/player can get up to speed and retain competence in a role/shape/creative freedom? 10/10 so far on the new features though. Really well done.

Well there's always CM 01/02

I'm sure they curated clips from the game that highlighted the feature they were showing. Also seemed like they picked Man City v Stratford SI Purple in a few clips. I'd hope in lower leagues (not that I have time to play those anymore) would have more hoofs just from TIs/PIs and the new player movement puts more emphasis on the mental attributes. That'd have a fun impact on people only signing wonderkids instead of prime-aged players at the top level too.

Away goals are down significantly for every team in FM23 compared to real life. It causes issues for the lower half of the table and in particular relegation candidates simply not scoring enough and not getting the correct amount of points. That's why you'll see the bottom team with points totals in the teens regularly. They are too passive away from home against everyone especially if the reputation is hugely different.

There's undoubtedly going to be quirks for some of these as they're new concepts. 24 might not get the attention from a match engine perspective but I think if we all take the time to report bugs or things that we think will improve the features they're introducing then 25/26/27 will be significantly better for it.

I'd imagine they've checked the basics if they're making it a headline feature...

Sure but end users are the ultimate testers. We can log, collectively, millions of hours of gameplay. Someone is going to find something that can happen that didn't show up in testing. We can all provide feedback during the beta period in a few weeks.

It would make contract negotiations for the player meaningful imo too. Even have some clubs flat out refuse to ever let you take full control (like tottenham as long as levy is there). Getting into a spat with the board like you're Jose should be part of the game.

perhaps - at game start simply having a toggle of start as head coach or manager/DOF if you can't be bothered with really building from scratch. Kind of like being able to pick your experience currently. It also might be easier for new players since you're only focused on match days. I'm also assuming that the AI transfer market is improved enough that your DOF doesn't buy a 6th first team CB and leave you strikerless. I don't think in a feature like this you'd be cut out entirely of transfers. You'd still have input but you might not get your top choice b/c of price or wages or interest. It might be the 6th choice on the list of identified targets. Its not an FM24 feature but I could see them building towards something like this in a 3-5 year dev cycle.

TBH the board should be annoying until you've got a high enough rep or history with the club to be SAF type manager. They're your boss and own the club. Some might be more hands off or more micromanagement-y. Some may grant you more or fewer responsibilities at initial contract time. I could imagine future version where you're strictly hired as a head coach rather than a full manager of the team. The DOF would handle transfers/contracts/scouting/youth and simply ask for your input on what kind of player or rank potential targets until you've been around long enough and have enough success on the pitch to earn that privilege in your own contract negotiations.

I'm sure someone will post in the first week with a complaint about how "unrealistic" it is that Chelsea scoop up all the young players for crazy high fees and then never play them.

Not sure how much a manger would deal with that other than maybe show up to a photo shoot or press conference. If you were thinking along the lines of wooing sponsors like some of the old f1 games like GPM 1/2/World, I'd think a lot of the work would be done by a commercial manager. Not saying it wouldn't be an interesting addition but I'd rather focus (and have SI focus) on the core football activities. I'm hoping the changes to the transfer market make it harder for top teams to build up to a 2B bank account in 5 years. Always felt like it was impossible to make money at the lower levels (fair) and then too easy to make money if you were a top team (so long as you didn't put crazy future fees in).

like what?

That's a "we forgot we sold to corporations not people and therefore actually cannot f*** companies over like they're consumers. We've gotten a ton of threatening phone calls from lawyers and now need to come up with a way to legalese our way out of this mess to implement this new policy. We'll share an update microsoft, nintendo, and sony stop smacking us around for being complete morons."

Yeah I can't see major game developers allowing this to happen at all. They struggle to turn a profit even on popular games. Don't see how they're going to enforce it and limit "install bombing". Sounds like typical CEO nonsense trying to squeeze every last drop of blood from a stone. Also SI probably negotiated their terms already. It might affect them at contract renewals but I doubt it would have an effect on the current development cycle. Don't think a good lawyer would allow Unity to change the terms like that especially given how recently they would have purchased the license. That'd be negotiating on unity's terms in bad faith, especially if something like this was known/in the works prior to the contract being initiated/signed. I also don't see how developers would allow old games to have this placed in their code. So this all sounds like the beginning of the end for unity to me if they don't roll it back all the way.

I would as well. I think the subscription models was in reference to availability stadia (RIP) or now gamepass and apple arcade etc. The license agreements would make it very, very tricky to do a subscription model. Having to migrate people to the new version would be a big risk as I'd think the game would have to be labelled FM 24 or FM 25 rather than something generic that can be upgraded. Besides, the subscription model puts you at risk of someone only playing for a month and paying 1/12 of the cost of the full game and then never play again for 11 months. Better to buy the game get the full price up front and not worry if someone is still paying for the game 6 months after release.