CM 4

[SunDancer]

Has the game worn off on you?

I am wondering, how is it after the EP 4 patch and the EP 5 patch?

Downloading the fifth patch, I load the game and the thing says 4.08.03 in the corner ( Ithink something like that). Is that the new patch or no?

[Karim]

Yeah, that's the latest patch.

The game has worn off only because I'm playing OOTP5. As a notoriously slow sim player, I'm still able to get through a full 162-game season in 4 or 5 days which enables me to enjoy the off-season stuff more frequently and quickly develop some league history.

CM4 is great but it's complexity means I need more time to really play it the way I want.

[ice4277]

I am actually playing CM more now than I did in the past. After getting the sack from Ipswich, despite getting them out of the first division and into Europe, I took control of my first ever MLS team, the Rapids. However that lasted all of 16 game-days, until Benfica of Portugal came in and made an offer for me, which I gladly took up. Kinda surprising that a higher-profile club such as that would take me, especially after getting the sack, since I made myself American in the game. Now looking forward to bringing the Portugese title back to Lisbon on a regular basis.

[Bee]

I haven't played in about a week or so, but that's because of a lack of time right now in the evenings. I'm enjoying my current career just as much (if not more) than my career last year. I think the challenge of winning has greatly increased. Last year I started in the English Conference, won it the first season, promoted to 3rd Division, promoted in the second season to the 2nd Division, won it, promoted to the 1st Division in the third season, stayed there for a couple seasons and then won it and promoted to the EPL by my 5th or 6th season. This year, I'm in my 3rd season and am still in the English Conference, although I think promotion is likely this season (although I though the same thing last season until my top player went out for 3 months).

I really need to find some time to get back to that career...

[condors]

the more i play it the more i want to play it,

trying to win some trophies with chelsea without the nonoffical updates bringing in prospects(youth players that say promising midfielder, foward, defender) trying to win with the players they start and build for the future

thru is always another challenge in cm try a different team, league etc i still want to try the scottish league and take a team the celtic rangers mix, also i want to get a lower league spain team and build them up, i don't feel myself getting bored or the game wearing off i find myself getting attached to young players and seeing how their careers play out. i feel i am just getting my feet wet.

[BucDawg40]

CM4 is great! Err, um, what I really mean is that it could have been great. However, there are very serious bugs left in the game that will not be fixed. In essence, I paid $45 to be a beta tester and wasted many hourse of my time after each "enhancement pack" only to be disappointed every time. I thought EP5 had finally given me a game worthy of my hard-earned cash, but after a couple of seasons I gave up. There is a problem with certain attributes degrading game-wide (i.e. positioning, set pieces, agility, etc...) that makes the game entirely unplayable after a couple of seasons (for me). IMO, SI have handled this horribly. I understand that at some point they had to move on to the next version, but I feel robbed of my cash. Marc seems like a cool, intelligent guy, but SI will not get one more penny out of me unless an EP6 is released (which they have said will not happen).

[ice4277]

Originally posted by BucDawg40
There is a problem with certain attributes degrading game-wide (i.e. positioning, set pieces, agility, etc...) that makes the game entirely unplayable after a couple of seasons (for me).

How many seasons did it take you to notice this? I am starting the 2007/08 season at the moment and haven't really noticed anything like this, although I don't pay terribly close enough attention to my player's ratings to notice if these drop a couple points.

Also, as to the rest of your posts, I will agree that the game was a mess the first couple months after release, but since EP3 I have been able to play the game and get a great deal of enjoyment out of it. I do have some minor issues, but they are generally of a secondary nature and definitely not enough to make me want to stop playing.

[Bee]

I haven't noticed any degradation of skills yet (although I'm only in my 3rd season).

[3ric]

I'm in 2015 and am experiencing degradation of attributes, but to say that makes the game unplayable is far from the truth. It just makes that guy with a 9 in set pieces all the more valuable.

[condors]

there is an anomalty with players having low postioning on the regenerated players but there still are players that have high postioning just not as many as when you start the game, i played until 2031 and was still able to find players with good stats across the board there was a study of this on sigames board some time ago while it is an issue i would like to see addressed but the game is very much playable, i wouldn't have noticed if i didn't read about it

[Chief Rum]

The game is quite playable, and it is on that basis that SIGames is not going to put out an EP6 to address the issue bucdawg is talking about.

That said, for many stat simmers, the accuracy and consistency of the ratings is absolutely critical to the integrity of the game. Obviously, others can ignore this, or the dumb awards issues, or the too much dependency on morale, or the heavy jadedness that people are running into, or the continuing huge problem with finances (in transfers, how clubs handle money, how the boards handle wage and transfer budgets, how clubs in receivers don't act like it), or the fact AI teams are considered on a completely different scale than human teams with regards to player value in transfers, or the fact that small clubs can't get stadium expansions as they move up in divisions (even when the board grants it, nothing happens). I could go on like this.

I couldn't ignore it, though. I am happy for those of you who can ignore these issues, but I have much empathy with bucdawg and his issues with the game.

The deterioration of certain skill sets in certain positions is maddening and wide-encompassing in its problems (the thread referred to above referenced something around 10-15 different attributes at least which would be affected by this in the near or far future). I see it as a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't situation. On one hand, if you just accept that other than the attributes dropping, the players seem to play fine, than you must also accept that the attributes are virtually meaningless and scouting becomes an utter crapshoot (a stat game where the attributes mean nothing? Come on! That's like a text-sim game without...umm...text, i.e. something inherent and critical to the game). On the other hand, if you can't ignore the attributes dropping, than how can you justify playing on? How can you honestly make proper judgement calls with players who can't position themselves properly on the field, or strikers who can't dribble the ball or goaltenders with no agility skills?

The regens themselves are a big problem with this, but except for a few of the top players, the current players all also suffer drops.

And this is just one major issue. The others I mentioned above have led people to raise their hands in the air in disgust. I love the CM series, but CM4 has been gathering dust for me since mid-July when I realized it was pretty much crap without another patch.

And now one is not forthcoming. No, I won't be contributing any money to SIGames for a while either, at least not until I know the product I am buying is truly a finished product they have eliminated all of the major bugs out of them.

Remember the TDCB release issue? I would say the release of CM4 was comparable to that release, but EP5 gets it to about where TDCB was with 1.20 (a playable game, but still with a ton of bugs, including game killers). For those of you that don't know, TDCB is now at 1.33 or 1.34 (and now quite enjoyable).

I don't think the bugs that have been asked to be squashed in CM4 are too much to ask when we all have put down $45-50 with shipping costs and the like on the game.

You guys may note that my Kettering Dynasty has not been continued. There is a reason for that.

CR

[Bee]

Well for me, I haven't ignored most of what you mention CR...I just haven't seen it. Perhaps because I play much slower than others but I haven't seen the deterioration of skills yet. The awards I've seen have generally been pretty realistic. I generally don't check the "major" awards though, just the ones that are in my conference. I haven't noticed the morale being more important than in previous versions. Unhappy players don't play well, I saw that in the last couple versions as well and it seems to make sense to me. I haven't had a problem with "jadedness". If I screw a player over, he gets upset but I'd expect him to. I've only had a jaded player twice in my 3 seasons and both times I had a pretty good idea why he wasn't happy. As far as finances, I think there are a few issues but nothing I would classify as gamebreakers. Transfers are harder to get through, but I think that's a good thing for gameplay myself. Again, I'm a conference team without any money so perhaps I haven't seen some of the problems with the finances. Since I haven't been promoted I don't know about the stadium upgrade problem you mention. I know I will be very disappointed if I continue to play the game and all these problems arise.

As far as comparing the release of CM4 with TDCB, I think that's a little extreme. TDCB may have been the worst release since Sierra's last football game. I will give you that the CM4 game wasn't very good at all when it was released, but IMO it didn't even approach the issues that TDCB had. Of course, like with anything, that's subjective.

As far as CM4 goes, I am enjoying it a great deal right now. If I hit a lot of the issues you bring up, I will probably stop playing it as well.

[JonInMiddleGA]

If anyone asks why I haven't bought CM4 and have serious doubts that I ever will, please consult this thread.

That said, for many stat simmers, the accuracy and consistency of the ratings is absolutely critical to the integrity of the game. Obviously, others can ignore this, or the dumb awards issues, or the too much dependency on morale, or the heavy jadedness that people are running into, or the continuing huge problem with finances (in transfers, how clubs handle money, how the boards handle wage and transfer budgets, how clubs in receivers don't act like it), or the fact AI teams are considered on a completely different scale than human teams with regards to player value in transfers, or the fact that small clubs can't get stadium expansions as they move up in divisions (even when the board grants it, nothing happens).

If all of these things still exist, then it isn't something I consider playable, at least not something that I could enjoy playing. If someone else can enjoy it in spite of these things, by all means they're welcome to do so. But where I come from, those aren't "issues" or "design features" or "programming decisions", those are bugs and should be squashed if it takes until patch 5+x.

[GrantDawg]

I haven't touched it since EP4. I had too many other distractions. But, seeing this I probably won't bother. That really is disappointing.

[ice4277]

To touch on a couple of points Chief made:

Ratings: As I mentioned earlier, I haven't noticed a huge slide in player ratings; if they drop a point or two, I probably wouldn't notice, as I don't pay that close of attention to them in detail.

Jadedness: I am in my sixth season on my current game, after playing two seasons in a previous game, and I've maybe had one player tell me they were jaded. So I can't say this is an issue for me.

Morale: I had big problems before with this, but haven't really had any that I've noticed recently.

Finances: Haven't had any major issues one way or the other. I think one thing that people are getting hung up on is the transfer money vs. wage money issue; many people seem to think this is a bug but I think this is just a design decision that isn't very popular. With the current financial problems the soccer world is facing it is very much a truth that many teams have instituted strict wage structures and are not very willing to go above them to bring players in. This may not be true for the Man U's and Real Madrid's of the world, but I think it works fairly well in the game. When I was managing Ipswich I had a very low wage total I could offer to players. After being promoted to the Premiership it gradually went up each season as the team became more profitable and had more funds in the bank, to the point that I probably was able to offer wages right around the top half of the Premiership, while still maintaining some sort of budget.

Stadium expansions: I've never tried to get one so I'm not sure, but I've gone to the board with two requests for other things and they granted them for completion at the end of the season.

Awards: This is probably the one category that annoys me the most, as I get some really stupid winners for awards. However, its not the end of the world and it doesn't really make playing the game that much less enjoyable for me.

I also think the TD release was MUCH worse than this release, and would be very hesitant to say that it has progressed to a 'better' state than CM4; a couple people have posted just today in other threads that many of the player ratings in TD seem meaningless and arbitrary. So, I guess for the most part it is all a matter of perspective.

[Bee]

Just another quick comment on the comparison to TDCB. I think CM4 is far ahead of TDCB in quality, but that's not to say that TDCB is a bad game considering it is for all practical purposes a first version. While I haven't gotten much enjoyment out of the game, I do think it has a great deal of potential for future versions. As always, that's just my opinion.

[bbor]

I'm having problems with stadium expansion..i'm in my third season in Prem and my stadium is still only 6000 some odd seats.Ihave over 25 mil in the bank and the board says that they cannot afford to expand the stadium.:(

I am also finding it immpossible to get a NAT job...even though i have brought my team from Conf to Prem in 11 years:(

Other than that...i play it every day,and until my cd of Airliner comes in...i'm playing it non-stop:)

[BucDawg40]

*shakes Chief Rum's hand for putting it so well*

[Karim]

Originally posted by ice4277
Ratings: As I mentioned earlier, I haven't noticed a huge slide in player ratings; if they drop a point or two, I probably wouldn't notice, as I don't pay that close of attention to them in detail.


Unfortunately, if it was a drop by one or two, I doubt too many would complain but it's much worse than that. Eventually, the best defenders in the world have positioning attributes of '1' and the best dribblers in the world have dribbling of '1' (two of the main attributes in question although I have heard it happens to finishing as well).

It's not an anomoly because several people have reported this at the SI forums.

Chief Rum sums up nicely the major concerns with CM4 at this point in time.

[Karim]

Dola,

Maybe we should be thankful that EHM:FE is based on the CM3 engine?

[ice4277]

Originally posted by Karim
Unfortunately, if it was a drop by one or two, I doubt too many would complain but it's much worse than that. Eventually, the best defenders in the world have positioning attributes of '1' and the best dribblers in the world have dribbling of '1' (two of the main attributes in question although I have heard it happens to finishing as well).

It's not an anomoly because several people have reported this at the SI forums.

Chief Rum sums up nicely the major concerns with CM4 at this point in time.

How long does it take for this problem to pop up? As I mentioned, I'm in 2007/08 season and I just did some research on defenders on my game and don't really see this occuring. Is it something that is much farther down the line?

[Karim]

From what I've read over at SI, it seems to occur around 5+ years into a career but isn't severe until decades into a career.

[condors]

i am running the game while i go on holiday and will get player attributes

[Marc Vaughan]

Just my tuppence on things:

I sincerely believe that CM4 is a very playable game (especially circa EP#5) - yes there are some issues with it, mainly long-term tuning problems where stats can drift over many seasons.

I am taking notes on all problems reported since the EP#5 patch (which is one of the reasons for the EP#5 bugs forum on sigames.com) and we will obviously attempt to rectify them for our next game.

I realise that the fact that there are still some long-term issues in the game despite our releasing a final patch for it is 'irksome' for some people, but I believe that these issues aren't actually 'show-stoppers' and to be frank that the majority of people would never have noticed them if someone else hadn't pointed them out.

It is unfortunately a fact of life that we have to move forward onto a new product each year and as such 'cut-off' live coding support on our current game. This has always been the case with our games and I am afraid is likely to be the case again with all future products.

If this prevents anyone from trusting SI or purchasing future products then this is a shame and all I can do is continue to be honest with you about things and attempt to ensure that our games are addictive enough to lure you back to them.

[Honolulu_Blue]

Yes. It's time to move on. EHM:FE is waiting. Focus all energies on this. Get it out soon.

Thank you.

As for CM4, I have stopped playing it, but not because of perfromance issues, but mainly time. It takes up a lot of time which I just don't have anymore, which is sad. I enjoy it so. I still pick my career up every now and then, but it's few and far between.

[Karim]

Originally posted by Honolulu_Blue
Yes. It's time to move on. EHM:FE is waiting. Focus all energies on this. Get it out soon.

Thank you.

:D

[Fonzie]

Originally posted by Marc Vaughan
JI realise that the fact that there are still some long-term issues in the game despite our releasing a final patch for it is 'irksome' for some people, but I believe that these issues aren't actually 'show-stoppers' and to be frank that the majority of people would never have noticed them if someone else hadn't pointed them out.

I disagree with that contention. Are you suggesting nobody would have noticed the stadium expansion problem or the fact that nearly all players "drift" down to positioning ratings of 1?

It is unfortunately a fact of life that we have to move forward onto a new product each year and as such 'cut-off' live coding support on our current game. This has always been the case with our games and I am afraid is likely to be the case again with all future products.


I consider myself fairly sympathetic to your company's need to move on and make money, and I'm not trying to be combative here, but EP5 does still have some serious, oft-reported bugs that significantly affect long-term play. I'm no Pollyanna; I know most game companies have a similar policy about patching games and limiting post-release costs. However, I had hoped that your company would do a better job at patching than this. I find that to be a real shame.

[Marc Vaughan]

Originally posted by Fonzie
I disagree with that contention. Are you suggesting nobody would have noticed the stadium expansion problem or the fact that nearly all players "drift" down to positioning ratings of 1?

It might surprise you but yes I doubt many people would have noticed the ratings drift - my reasoning behind this is simply that there was a similar problem with physical stats in CM3 and CM99-00 (I ironed it out for CM00-01).

Very few people noticed the problem in those games and those who did for whatever reason weren't so vehement about it being considered a 'show-stopper' (possibly because CM3 was seen as a larger jump forward from CM2 than CM4 was from CM3?).

I consider myself fairly sympathetic to your company's need to move on and make money, and I'm not trying to be combative here, but EP5 does still have some serious, oft-reported bugs that significantly affect long-term play. I'm no Pollyanna; I know most game companies have a similar policy about patching games and limiting post-release costs. However, I had hoped that your company would do a better job at patching than this. I find that to be a real shame. [/B]

I am sorry if anyone is unsatisfied with the final version of CM4.

Thats a fair enough opinion (and I fully realise its impossible to please everyone all of the time), I do what I can to ensure that our games are as good as possible and personally attempt to be as open and accessible to customers as possible.

I'm happy to take praise when things go right (they do sometimes honest ;) ) so its only right that I take responsibility for things when they don't run so smoothly.

We have learnt a lot from CM4's release - not a great consolation to you at the moment I realise, but and I am confident that any future releases will be 'smoother' because of this.

[Fonzie]

Originally posted by Marc Vaughan
[BI'm happy to take praise when things go right (they do sometimes honest ;) ) so its only right that I take responsibility for things when they don't run so smoothly. [/B]

Don't misunderstand my comments - I loved playing CM4 and feel that it is a very promising game. I've probably not heaped enough praise on you for the game - but it is precisely because of my enjoyment of this game that I'm frustrated by the remaining bugs (and also in part because I tend to play very long careers, rendering me more susceptible to these types of bugs).

In short - we complain because we care, so be sure to take our negativity as a type of compliment. Criticism is much better than indifference. If that makes sense.

And while I'm catching up on overdue praise - I've been very impressed by your responsiveness to the FOFC community's comments about CM4. It is very much appreciated.

[SplitPersonality1]

Originally posted by Fonzie
And while I'm catching up on overdue praise - I've been very impressed by your responsiveness to the FOFC community's comments about CM4. It is very much appreciated.

Hey Fonzie. Kissing butt won't get you a free copy of CM5. ;)

[Fonzie]

Originally posted by SplitPersonality1
Hey Fonzie. Kissing butt won't get you a free copy of CM5. ;)

It was worth a shot! ;)

[rexallllsc]

Does anyone do updated rosters for cm3?

[Chief Rum]

Just wanted to piggyback on Fonzie here. I list out the bugs far above and they do deeply concern me,b ut it is easy to get caught up with them and not point out some of the great things that are a part of this game.

I think what disappoints me the most is that there is so much in this game to see its full potential. You can literally envision it. And the only thing that's getting in the way of that vision are these ridiculous bugs (and the decision to take out several small, but nice features from CM3, a decision I can't even for a moment discern the reason for). So that can be frustrating.

But there's no doubt thta what Marc and company have done is quite impressive.

CR

[Marc Vaughan]

Originally posted by Chief Rum
(and the decision to take out several small, but nice features from CM3, a decision I can't even for a moment discern the reason for). So that can be frustrating.

Nothing was 'removed' - CM4 was written from scratch and it was the case that we didn't have time to implement everything from CM01-02 for the first version of CM4, simple as that.

We will be attempting to include the temporarilarly dropped features in our next game (along with some brand new stuff obviously).

[Chief Rum]

It was "removed" from our perspective, Marc. Sorry if that wasn't clear.

Once again, I think what you guys did in almost all aspects of the game is incredible. But I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree about the importance of those bugs. I don't care if we call them "show stoppers", "playable bugs", or "pink elephants". They still get very much in the way of my and many others players' enjoyment of the game, and I would argue that the customers have a reasonable expectation that those bugs would be sought out and crushed.

I am only more certain I am making the right decision in that I will be holding off on buying future SIGames until I am certain they are ready to be played as intended and fully. And I should hold other companies to that same standard as well. I wish we all would, then we wouldn't always go through these sort of things in the computer industry.

I know if there is any company out there that can pull it off, it is the fine programmers at SIGames. But I don't think it is anything but reasonable to expect that I and many of your previously loyal customers are going to be reticent to shell out the bucks for the next game after CM4.

My apologies if these words are harsh. I am merely speaking the truth, as a loyal customer and owner of the past two CMs. I look forward to one day being such again.

Chief Rum

[Marc Vaughan]

My apologies if these words are harsh. I am merely speaking the truth, as a loyal customer and owner of the past two CMs. I look forward to one day being such again.

'tis quite all right - as I indicated earlier I have to be prepared to take the rough with the smooth and I'd always prefer to hear an honest opinion even if its not complimentary all the time (otherwise my games wouldn't evolve in the way people really want).

I knew when we started it that creating the CM4 engine from scratch was somewhat 'risky' compared to continuing to stretch the CM3 engine, but if we were to fulfil our long-term plans for the game rather than simply 'milk' it we needed to remodel the games architecture.

While some aspects of the game aren't visibly different I am hopeful that in the next few evolutions of the game you will start to see the reasoning behind the move to the new engine and appreciate its extra flexibility.

[McSweeny]

Originally posted by Marc Vaughan
While some aspects of the game aren't visibly different I am hopeful that in the next few evolutions of the game you will start to see the reasoning behind the move to the new engine and appreciate its extra flexibility.

stop making me drool!

and i am enjoying CM4 very much in it current state.