Manager Mode in 09?

[Jono078]

I will be playing manager mode in the coming days a little bit.

Today though I just had a quick muck around and besides the visual updates in the menus and stuff I can't notice much difference from FIFA 08.

[southernbelle]

Quote: Originally Posted by Jono078

I will be playing manager mode in the coming days a little bit. Today though I just had a quick muck around and besides the visual updates in the menus and stuff I can't notice much difference from FIFA 08.

i just started an impressions thread... can you guys dump impressions in there? hopefully it will get stickied.

[Krebstar]

Quote: Originally Posted by calcutta

I have the game (released two days early down here!) and I can confirm that Manager Mode is EXACTLY the same. None of the things i was hoping (see first post) have been added, and there are no new leagues. Will be a while till i know if they've corrected the formats like Playoff systems in different countries though... The only differences i've seen are some new graphical overlays (mainly on start up) and again before starting the mode, you can check each team's starting budget first before signing with that team...i don't recall being able to do that last season. For the record, Man City's starting budget is only USD $44million while Chelsea's is $135million or so! Also i can confirm that rosters are up to date, well for the teams i've bothered to check anyway (Berbatov is at Man U, Robinho is at City). I certainly didn't download any new updates when i played because Xbox Live was down at the time.

Nice to see that you can view budgets before you start. It was not in last year, but had been on the PS2/Xbox versions for years.

[calcutta]

MANAGER MODE TEST RUN
I did one of my usual Manager Mode test runs just to see if a) anything is different, and b) how smart the CPU logic is...i chose reigning European champions Manchester United in my test run. Simming most of the games and only playing selected ones.

Before starting it, in the main Team Mgt menu, i made some drastic changes to Chelsea's starting lineup just to see how Chelsea would line up against their title rivals when we played each other. I removed GK Cech, CB Terry and RM/W Joe Cole (all rated in the mid-to-high 80s) and replaced them with three reserves all rated in the 60s - Taylor, Mancienne and Fabio Ferreira. Would the CPU be smart enough to recognise these players really should not be starting against Man Utd (or any team for that matter) in MM?

EUROPEAN PLAY IN FIRST SEASON?
Anyway, i started the MM as Man Utd and the first game to play was the FA Community Shield against Portsmouth. Good to see that is still in. Simmed it and lost on PKs. At the same time however, i noticed the "Group Tables" section was greyed out/inaccessible, which clearly means i'm NOT taking part in the UEFA Champions League (or its in game equivalent) despite the fact we are reigning champions

TRANSFER LOGIC
Next thing was mucking around with the transfer mechanics while the window was still open. The top 3 players who have been made available for sale by their clubs are Juan Roman Riquelme (BOCA), Tim Howard (Everton) and Marek Hamsik (Napoli). Meanwhile, I also decided to put some players up for sale including Cristiano Ronaldo (USD $75,000,000 market price), Wayne Rooney ($31,000,000), Michael Carrick ($7,800,000) and some of others at $4million or less each - Park Ji-Sung, John O'Shea, Darren Fletcher.

Simmed the next game, and now i've got one offer per player i put up for sale. And only one team made an offer per player too, no bidding wars. These were the offers:

Ronaldo - $81,750,000 offer made by SK Brann
Rooney - $26,600,000 by Botafogo
Carrick - $4,200,000; by Arsenal
Park - $3,100,000; by Man City (seems reasonable)
Fletcher - $1,800,000; by Liverpool (didn't Rafa get the hint from his failed Heinze attempt lol)
O'Shea - $1,800,000; by Chunam Dragons (i don't think he's at that point in his career yet...)

I accepted the Ronaldo offer (for an Achievement and also to see how we'd fair in simmed games w/o him) and the Park offer (to see whether or not Man City would actually play him). Rejected the rest but still had them for sale. As each game went by, again i only got one offer per team / per player...for ALL players i had made available. By the end of the window i ended up also selling:

Rooney - $33,000,000; sold to Aston Villa
O'Shea - $2,000,000; sold to Chelsea

I purposely sold them to league rivals just to see if they would actually play them (i can check this both in the Stats menu, as you can see league wide stats for goals and games played...and also when i play these teams, i certainly expect Rooney to start). In the same window, Tim Howard was sold to RW Ahlen (i'm still trying to figure with country they are in) but neither Riquelme nor Hamsik were sold.

CPU MANAGERIAL LOGIC
Simmed a bunch of games, till i came up against Chelsea in late November and opted to play that game. To my disappointment, Taylor was in goal, Mancienne and Ferreira were still in the starting lineup - it was EXACTLY the same as i had altered it to in the Main Menu. Terry and Joe Cole were on the bench as they evetually came on for their scrub replacements in the second half - no sign of O'Shea. But after looking at Chelsea's stats after the game, i noticed that Taylor, Mancienne and Ferreira had each played ALL of Chelsea's game up until that point of the season...so it seems that CPU 'managers' just start the lineup that is set for them in the main menu and they won't bother to incorporate new signings into their lineup either.

The latter was further confirmed when i played Man City and later Aston Villa...neither Park nor Rooney played any part of those matches. After the Villa game, i looked through Villa's stats and noticed Rooney had only played 4 games all season long (we were now in January) and had only scored 2 goals! If you click the right stick while highlighting a player's name, you can check out their profile, including fitness - his was on "Match Fit", so its not like he was injured.

INJURIES
Speaking of injuries, during my simming between August to Feb, my entire squad only had one injury to deal with...a finger injury to Berbatov that was 'cured' within a week.

TRANSFER LOGIC REVISITED
Back to transfers and the January window now, Cesc Fabregas ($22,000,000) and Ashley Young ($9,000,000) were easily the biggest names available. I resisted the urge to sign either/both of them in the hope a big name foreign or domestic rival would come in for them. To my surprise, Real Madrid bit the bullet and made the big name signing...of Ashley Young. OK so i doubt Real IRL would actually sign him, but to be fair it filled the six-month long void of Robinho (not that the CPU Bernt Schuster really recognised that, right...) and is certainly more realistic than most things that occurred in the August window. Fabregas ended up staying at the Emirates.

I also put two more starlets up for sale - Nani and Anderson. Got offers from Aston Villa and Arsenal respectively first time around...i would've seriously considered a Cesc for Anderson + cash swap deal if there was any counter offer option availabe (or i could've sold him then and signed Cesc the next week) but opted not to. The following week i received low ball offers from Middlesbrough and Stoke City that i refused since i was running out of first teamers

SUMMARY
So thats my experience from Manager Mode...nothing at all has changed except for some new graphics. One cool new change (rather than an addition) is that after each match, a screen showing all the results on the same day is shown, so you don't have to go into that convoluted fixtures screen just to see who beat who. Unfortunately, you can only view the final result, no option to see who scored the goals or anything else, except for your games.

All the past FIFA MM options are still there of course (Staff Upgrades, Scouting, EXP points to improve players, random email questions that affect your team), but they honestly don't looked to have been touched at all...they work fine of course, its just a little stale now.

Still gonna sim to the end of the season at least, maybe some surprises in store postseason, but at this stage, Be A Pro: Seasons mode already appears to be the more exciting offline option.

[bad_philanthropy]

Thanks for the detailed report, disappointing results to say the least. Franchise/MM type gameplay modes are what keeps me playing sports titles, I can accept some flaws, but what's the point of the mode if a fundamental thing like using a superstar player bought on the transfer market doesn't work? To me it's a gamekiller if a team signs Ronaldo for 81 million and then lets him rot away on the bench.

[mercalnd]

Quote: Originally Posted by bad_philanthropy

Thanks for the detailed report, disappointing results to say the least. Franchise/MM type gameplay modes are what keeps me playing sports titles, I can accept some flaws, but what's the point of the mode if a fundamental thing like using a superstar player bought on the transfer market doesn't work? To me it's a gamekiller if a team signs Ronaldo for 81 million and then lets him rot away on the bench.

This is a huge red flag for me. I can put up with team management quirks but this is beyond ridiculous.

[poster]

As great as the game play might be, it is an absolute disgrace that the logic was not tweaked. I am beyond pissed that it wasn't changed in any way from last year. They couldn't assign one or two guys to work on and fix these issues? I just can't buy that logic.

Dynasty modes are falling by the way side, it's an absolute shame.

[Dante LeRoi]

Quote: Originally Posted by calcutta

Tim Howard was sold to RW Ahlen (i'm still trying to figure with country they are in)

Germany, 2. Bundesliga