Didn't realize it until this year, but it's kind of ridiculous you can't see any information about owners.
You should definitely be able to see if your owner is temperamental, if he's rich, if he's only interested in making a profit, etc. You don't even need to show us all of his stats, just do what OOTP does:
Big changes are coming in the next few versions. FM24 will be able to load FM23 saves!
FM25 will be a whole new engine using Unity!
FM25 will be a whole new engine using Unity!
Funny how that didn't seem even remotely controversial three months ago, huh?
Anyway, I don't expect them to move away from using it, especially considering they've almost certainly started already. They can afford the fees.
However, in other news, I think this may be the first year in almost 20 years of playing FM that I'm going to adopt my Madden/2K/etc. rules and not buy the annual release, in favor of skipping a year.
And it's not been that I dislike FM 24, I've gotten plenty of mileage out of it, just as I have with every game prior. But over the last month and a half or so, my desire to play it has totally fallen off of a cliff, and with so many other games on my "to-play" list, I genuinely think that I won't miss it if I choose to skip this year and buy back in next year.
The announcement trailer has just hit, and I assume the full game will be what I expect. Incremental changes and some bug fixes/quality of life improvements, with another 2-3 features that'll work a lot better next year.
And again, that's not a criticism! I think that's all they, or any dev really can do in the timeframe they have.
I just think I need a break from FM, especially with the absolute glut of RPGs I have to get through now (Pathfinder/CP2077/BG3/Starfield), not to mention a comical amount of other titles that have been sitting in my Steam library, uninstalled, unplayed or unfinished.
This seems like the perfect time for a temporary adieu to FM, and to come back for FM 25 when it may not be a whole new game, but will definitely feel different.
EDIT: All of this said, watch this space because if Fulham are in the relegation places come January, there is absolutely going to be a "NVM I BUCKLED" post from me.
The other piece of news I saw is that FM24 Mobile will be exclusive to Netflix subscribers. Might try that out myself, actually... the full-fat version is too heavy for me these days.
Presumably FM Touch will remain on Apple Arcade.
The Saudi League is IN THE GAME. XD
The Saudi League is IN THE GAME. XD
Boy is it. Every other post on reddit FM since the beta release has been "The Saudi league is breaking the game! They just gave me €150 million for Varane!"
You could argue that it's unrealistic in the sense that, thus far, they've spent insane amounts on salaries, but not actually on transfers.
Not that they haven't tried, mind you.
I just think I need a break from FM, especially with the absolute glut of RPGs I have to get through now (Pathfinder/CP2077/BG3/Starfield), not to mention a comical amount of other titles that have been sitting in my Steam library, uninstalled, unplayed or unfinished.
This seems like the perfect time for a temporary adieu to FM, and to come back for FM 25 when it may not be a whole new game, but will definitely feel different.
EDIT: All of this said, watch this space because if Fulham are in the relegation places come January, there is absolutely going to be a "NVM I BUCKLED" post from me.
December 9. Barely made it a month.
TBF, it's not because Fulham are relegation-threatened, obviously. The content just got to me. I follow so many FM YouTubers, and then my best friend buckled, and so now, here I am, downloading the real names fix again.
EDIT: Like wrapping myself up in my favorite blanket. A warm embrace. Hello again, my friend.
I've had a save going for a while too. I make slow progress because of the endless stream of press conferences and papers ringing me up to ask me if the 86th player I brought in on trial has a chance to get a contract.
"I play with masking on, mate, I literally don't even know this guy's stats outside of he's six-five and he scored ten goals in the Chilean third division."
I started unemployed with the worst possible stats - Sunday League footballer with a 5 for "Mental" and a 5 for "People Management" and everything else a 1 - and ended up taking over Melaka in Malaysia's "Third League" which, confusingly, is their second division.
Not like good old England, where League 2 is the fourth tier, obvs.
The board expectation was immediate promotion and after a couple hiccups that saw me third or fourth all the way to the mid-season break, we accelerated away to ultimately canter the league, mainly because no other team could consistently beat the bottom sides.
The step up to the Malaysian Super League has been painful though. I didn't do a good enough job of recruiting for the gap in ability over the off-season and I really struggled early on.
I was playing mostly top teams, but I was getting pumped 4-0 or 4-1 and morale was falling apart, so I had to change to a much more rigid formation and play defensively.
This steadied the ship and playing against easier teams has seen us win four in a row, but you can still see the scars from those early games in our -3 goal difference.
You play 26 games and 28 points is probably enough to stay up, I just need to make sure I win all the relegation six-pointers.
Slow news day.
Signing Radja Nainggolan for my semi-pro Belgian team may be the thing that gets us promoted.
Assuming he doesn't start too many locker room fights, that is.
Signing Radja Nainggolan for my semi-pro Belgian team may be the thing that gets us promoted.
Assuming he doesn't start too many locker room fights, that is.
You had me at Belgian. Which team are you playing?
Oh! Sorry dej, I thought I answered this!
I'm playing as little old R. Olympic Charleroi Châtelet Farciennes, a team with a comically long name because so many of your clubs have all apparently merged at some point.
I've done Big 5 (ENG/FRA/GER/ITA/SPA) games for so long, it was time for a change of pace and after Zealand's Florisdorfer save, I was like "I gotta just give something new a shot," and my framing was "Let's play a nation that hasn't won a CL title yet."
So my goal is to try and win a CL title in Belgium.
I won't, but it'll be a good change of pace from the usual race to the Premiership and becoming an uber-team you get in most FM LLM games.
I might even do a Brazil save next. Or a MLS save, or just a true globe-hopping save. It's time for a change. But it's well past time for me to do a game where I end up falling in love with a club that no-one has ever heard of.
EDIT: I genuinely don't know what it is about this game, because everything I said before applies. And yet, staying up late on a Saturday night playing FM just feels right. Like, I said I'd skip a year, and I failed and I don't regret any of it.
This game does seem to flow a little better than previous versions. Everything still takes so long because there's so much cruft that's probably an accurate reflection of modern football management - much more man/personality management than is actually fun - but it does seem to clip along a little faster than 22 or 23.
That could be just because I've landed in a league with a 26 game season though.
I didn't survive my first season in the top league :
Fifth with a negative goal difference! I am the Manchester United of Malaysia.
The board sold one of my starting centre backs in the off-season and my starting right back has announced he's going to run down his contract and leave at the end of this season, so I might be off sooner than later. There's not really a route to quickly overhaul Johor given financial disparities and this is very much a fringe journeyman save rather than a Grass Roots thing, so I don't might taking another job if a good one appears.
I really do need to get my coaching badges going though and Melaka will not pay for them, which is a drag.
When I started Mental and People Management were rated 5 and everything else was a 1, so it's progress but I only have a National C license, which is the lowest level above "none."
There's still so much about FM that needs fixing. Press conferences are useless, talking to players still feels insane ("I'd just like to congratulate you for playing so well recently." "F**K YOU, YOU'RE THE WORST MANAGER EVER I WANT OUT"), boards are ridiculous, but not in a realistically ridiculous way...
...and I'm still having a lot of fun.
Olympic Charleroi is currently 2nd in the Belgian National Division 1. We're two points off top, eight clear of third with 21 of 34 games played. Promotion is feeling increasingly certain.
Of course, NOW, half my f**king squad want new deals, even though if we can get promoted, there's a more than decent chance we can turn Professional and they can get Full-Time deals. But no, they don't want to wait to get a new deal.
And I'm STILL having fun!
There's still so much about FM that needs fixing. Press conferences are useless, talking to players still feels insane ("I'd just like to congratulate you for playing so well recently." "F**K YOU, YOU'RE THE WORST MANAGER EVER I WANT OUT"), boards are ridiculous, but not in a realistically ridiculous way...
I hate the social-sim elements of the recent FMs.
Like... it's possible to simulate football matches and the tactics and choices that influence them. It is not possible, in any realistic or satisfactory manner, to simulate human relationships or even one-off interactions. When I'm talking to someone in real life, a huge amount of non-verbal subtlety goes into that: body language, tone of voice, etc. And there is an ebb-and-flow to it; if I sense the conversation is going in a bad direction, I can course-correct and change my approach on the fly...
None of this is possible in the kind of interactions Football Manager engineers. It's just: "pick from these vague dialogue prompts, shorn of any non-verbal context, and pray that the developers of the game think that you made a good choice."
The funny thing is that, decades ago and when this series was still called Championship Manager, none of these social-sim elements existed - but I still felt bonded with my players. Where the game had gaps, my imagination took over; I would daydream team talks and individual interactions, attribute personality traits to certain players, simulate press conferences in my mind... This fantasy play was, to me, so much more magical and satisfying than all the artificial stuff shoehorned into FM these days.
Olympic Charleroi is currently 2nd in the Belgian National Division 1. We're two points off top, eight clear of third with 21 of 34 games played. Promotion is feeling increasingly certain.
I should've never said anything.
Radja Nainggolan now has knee knack, and his backup broke his foot. My midfield is now one competent guy and one completely outmatched U21 player.
Last year after 11 games in Malaysia I was 6-0-5 for 18 points. This year I'm 5-3-3 for a completely different 18 points. Last year I had scored 16 and allowed 19, this year that's 24/16. So, same-same-but-different.
Right now we're in the It's-Too-Hot-For-Football summer break through the whole of June and I don't really feel compelled to bring in new players, so there isn't a lot to do. We could use new players everywhere, but we're at the salary limit with $0 transfer funds, so I'd have to pick up freebies and there's not a lot out there that's better than what I have now.
Now is the time to start picking up the young players however - the ones who will finally let me challenge Johor in two or three seasons, but the board is still denying me the opportunity to get coaching badges, so I can't really stick around for that long. I'm going to have to take a job somewhere else that will let me develop.
Progress is definitely happening with the team though. Last year I had significant questions about whether we'd stay up or not all the way until we got to 28 points. This year I was pretty confident early on when I saw how we were handling the weaker teams in the division. Johor and Kedah are still untouchable for us, but we stuffed Pahang 4-1 at home and beat Perak 5-0 away.
For an idea of the talent we're working with, this is far and away our best player and top scorer.
The usual lower-league story of finding someone with good physicals who isn't terrible at one of two of the key skills for their role and then hope they find consistent form and aren't afraid of big matches.
Prederick wrote:Olympic Charleroi is currently 2nd in the Belgian National Division 1. We're two points off top, eight clear of third with 21 of 34 games played. Promotion is feeling increasingly certain.
I should've never said anything.
Radja Nainggolan now has knee knack, and his backup broke his foot. My midfield is now one competent guy and one completely outmatched U21 player.
So, unsurprisingly, this has led to a late-season collapse as my defense has decided to start playing like shit all of a sudden. We are now TWO points above 3rd and 6 behind top, with two games left to play. And it's not like a radical tactical change is going to help either.
I'm caught between wanting to chop and change the squad like a madman, and just being like "f*ck it, ride the horse that got us here."
Also, I only found out JUST YESTERDAY that Olympic Charleroi's 41-year-old backup (but still wants to play) striker just happens to be THE CLUB CHAIRMAN.
(I discovered this because he was being pissy about not getting played enough.)
Year two in the Malaysian Premier League went slightly better than year one, as we progressed one place from 5th to 4th, from a 13-3-10 record with 42 points, to a 13-7-6 record with 46 points.
Johor continue to be the Final Boss - they won the league by 17 points in a 26 game season, beating us home and away, knocked us out of the first round of the Malaysian FA Cup and beat us in the final of the Malaysia Cup.
It was their twelfth consecutive Malaysian league title. No other Malaysian team has won the title more than two times in a row.
Pahang had a remarkable season - their only win came on the final day and they beat the other relegated team, Imigresen. Pahang allowed 76 goals in a 26 game season and went down with a -54 goal difference.
I beat them 5-0 and 4-1.
The coaching badges situation was getting kind of silly, where the coaches who work for me were all up to the National A licenses, all paid for by the club, but then they'd refuse to pay for mine, because they were worried I'd be more attractive to other teams to steal then. So I still only had the "C" license.
Thankfully they finally agreed to let me get the B badge though, so that's some progress. I'm still going to be in charge of a whole team of coaches who are more (classroom) qualified than me though.
I signed another one year deal with the club, but I am constantly applying to other interesting positions now. If Johor run away with the league again this season then I really need to get out.
Developments!
Johor actually had a bad start to a season, losing three of their first six games, while I streaked to the top of the table... but then they turned into the terminator, as usual, and by the time we hit 15 games played I was back into third place, behind Johor and Kelantan United.
On the plus side though, Johor did get knocked out of the FA Cup while I went on a remarkable run.
In the first round we scored in the 85th and 88th minute to come from behind and win 2-1.
In the second round we scored in the 68th and 71st minute to come from behind and win 2-1.
In the Quarter final we were 2-0 down in fourteen minutes and still at halftime, but then scored 64th, 70th and 88th minutes to win 3-2.
In the semi-final we scored an 89th minute equaliser, then scored sixteen penalties to win the shootout 16-15.
This was the point where I left the club.
Hoo boy I did not want to leave - all my Lower League Manager juices were flowing - but this is supposed to be a journeyman save and the club offering were bigger and in a bigger league, so off I went, from Malaysia to Indonesia.
They also guaranteed a chance to take my next coaching badge if I signed.
I'm flying back to Malaysia to watch the FA Cup final and see if Melaka can win it without me.
Ho.
Lee.
Sh*t.
Amazing. My friend just sent this to me and I'm going to try this out the moment I get home tonight.
Meanwhile, in Olympic Charleroi news, it's actually Season 3 now. We got promoted in Season 1, and then I found out in Season 2 that the board was willing to increase our payroll from like $750K to a whopping $800K.
We managed to stay up by like 4 points, despite half the squad being angry at me because we turned full-time and they all wanted new deals and there is no option in FM to be like "We literally cannot afford it. Literally. The board won't let me."
I did not realize how small not only the reputation was here, but also the attendance. It is November of Season 3, and we are averaging 600 fans a game. Which is probably part of the reason why we have absolutely no money. We are once again barely above the relegation places, and I'm beginning to think about leaving for anywhere else.
The python thing didn't really work for me because my scouting is such garbage that I either have complete blanks or I have things like "PACE: 8-15." The code takes the midpoint in those ranges, but there's a big difference between 11 and 15 pace.
Plus with the limited skills of players at my level everyone gets marked as Poacher, Ball Winning Midfielder or No-Nonsense Centreback, as those positions need the least number of key abilities.
Once I make it into Europe or South America with some real scouting ability I'll go back to this.
Meanwhile, there hasn't been much to say about my first year in Indonesia, because I'm absolutely crushing it:
"I won another game!" doesn't make very compelling reading.
The board vision was literally to finish second every year for the next five years and establish myself as "best of the rest" which sounded like there was one untouchable team - the same situation I had faced in Malaysia.
That team was local rivals Persib and we randomly drew them in the first game of some annual pre-season tournament thingy.
Not knowing what sort of team I had at that point, I mirrored Persib's 4-1-2-3 and ground out a 1-0 in a game where neither team made it to 0.5xg. What I noticed in that game was that practically every midfielder on the team was a DM, so I just rolled with it and went 4-2-1-2-1 with two holding midfielders and a roaming ball-winner in front of them.
Cue the best defence in the league, with 15 goals allowed in 26 games.
A win and a draw from my last eight games will guarantee Persija's second ever league title.
The python thing didn't really work for me because my scouting is such garbage that I either have complete blanks or I have things like "PACE: 8-15." The code takes the midpoint in those ranges, but there's a big difference between 11 and 15 pace.
Plus with the limited skills of players at my level everyone gets marked as Poacher, Ball Winning Midfielder or No-Nonsense Centreback, as those positions need the least number of key abilities.
Once I make it into Europe or South America with some real scouting ability I'll go back to this.
Oh, you still need to scout the players, but this has been a real game-changer for me. If nothing else, instead of shift-clicking on 400 wingbacks, now I'm looking at the 5-10 I actually want.
Another Charleroi update: England's financial power is just hilarious. We are a Belgian second division side getting BADLY outspent by multiple teams in the fourth tier of English football.
Charleroi update:
Oh, you still need to scout the players, but this has been a real game-changer for me. If nothing else, instead of shift-clicking on 400 wingbacks, now I'm looking at the 5-10 I actually want.
Oh I know, but my scouting range is "whatever you can see from standing on the stadium roof" so I don't even have 400 players in the known list.
Thankfully the title win has seen my board upgrade my scouting network, because they bought a pair of binoculars for the people standing on the roof.
So, unsurprisingly, we held on to win the title, despite only having a narrow 20 point lead. We blew the chance to have the title celebrations at home by throwing away a two goal lead to draw 2-2 in the first game where a win would have sealed the big trophy, but then won the following game.
Persib were so disappointed their run of four consecutive titles had been snapped that they fired their manager, even though they finished second and beat me 1-0 on the final day of the season.
20 goals allowed in 34 games is ludicrous.
(Asian) Champions League football, here I come!
I'm flying back to Malaysia to watch the FA Cup final and see if Melaka can win it without me.
I forgot to clear this up!
I travelled back and ended up watching a one-sided destruction, as Melaka lost the final 3-0 without a shot on goal.
I pulled my hood up, left the stadium quickly and flew back to Indonesia as soon as possible.
Oh I know, but my scouting range is "whatever you can see from standing on the stadium roof" so I don't even have 400 players in the known list.
God I love LLM. Nothing like building your entire attack around a striker with 16 pace but 4 finishing but he makes it work because the goalies are all terrible.
God I love LLM. Nothing like building your entire attack around a striker with 16 pace but 4 finishing but he makes it work because the goalies are all terrible.
I usually nickname all of my players and one of my favourites was "Extravagant Geoff."
He was a lower tier German box-to-box midfielder with almost no football skills to mention, at all, but then nineteen Flair.
How would that even look in real life? A player who is constantly trying outrageous passes and tricks, and only getting them right 10% of the time.
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