Manager Mode early complaints

[calcutta]

Finished my A-League regular season and about to start the playoffs:

- the A-League playoffs in MM are still based on the previous seasons' Top 4 format...in real life this season the Top 6 make the playoffs. TBH, i think its silly that 6/10 teams will contest the playoffs, so i'm not too fussed about this myself, but obviously its not the correct format.

- once during the season, i had two league games scheduled on the same day! I was wondering why my Calendar only showed 26 match images when the league is 27 rounds. Fortunately so did every other team in the league which meant my opponents for the second match were also buggered. In the first round of the playoffs, which is 2-legged, again it appears BOTH matches will be played on the same day (again only one image has shown up on the Calendar).

- my team did NOT suffer a single significant injury all season long! ie: an injury that forced a player out of more games than just the one he was injured...in fact, i didn't suffer any in-game injury that forced my player out of that same game either (i usually subbed any minorly injured player anyway if i noticed them struggling).

- my Goalkeeper did end up being credited with all my team's assists, he led the league with 15

[calcutta]

Although i haven't messed around with Transfers much, i reckon that even if they fix ALL the issues i and others have come across, MM still feels very "isolated"...not knowing whats going on in other leagues in your association and across Europe was and remains one of my major gripes of MM. Not only foreign league results and standings but also, for example, I personally would like to know how potential foreign transfer targets are performing (ie: stats of foreign leagues) before i commit to signing them.

However, before i write it off completely i'm gonna start an MM with an EPL team and see how that goes...i'm thinking Manchester City, especially with their crazy starting budget, which is the second largest in the game (behind only Real Madrid).

[southernbelle]

Quote: Originally Posted by calcutta

However, before i write it off completely i'm gonna start an MM with an EPL team and see how that goes...i'm thinking Manchester City, especially with their crazy starting budget, which is the second largest in the game (behind only Real Madrid).

that will be interesting... bc you have all the money in the world, but low manager prestige. but, lots of talent there!

[KG]

Quote: Originally Posted by therizing02

If you ever get a chance to peruse the EA boards you'd see why the game is the way that it is. Online worldwide tournaments, general online ranked matches, and authentic kits, shoes, faces, etc. are the things that get brought up by the majority of the people that post on the EA boards. Again, majority. There are several people that post there are LIVID about the lack of depth that this game has. Unfortunately they are a minority. Even in the FIFA Soccer Blog review podcast the reviewer harped about the incorrect font color on a uniform for an extended amount of time. I thought the guy was going to burst into tears. Ridiculous. To EA's credit they have given their "community" what they are asking for. Great online play, rankings, tournaments, licensing, kits, faces, boots, etc., and improved gameplay. To a lot of people that makes FIFA, "the most realistic football game ever." The problem again(at least it seems so) for FIFA 10 will be lack of gameplay modes. Be a Pro is useless to me, it sounds like MM is a mess, but I'll make my own decision on that, and I can't stand playing online except for playing a few people that I know. For me, FIFA is about creating tournaments and exhibitions. Sad but true. The "other game" is for Champions League mode, Manager Mode (it's stale), and Become A Legend which has been the most addictive gameplay mode I've played in years. As with any other game it just comes down to what you can live with and what you can't. I'll be getting FIFA 10 and PES and I'll enjoy both for different reasons just like NBA Live 10 and 2K10.

I agree Riz. You can't please everyone so you're naturally going to appeal to the majority. We'll see if at least some things get patched before the US release.

[SpHSpH]

So which are we saying ...

(1) MM in FIFA10 is *worse* than MM in FIFA09

or

(2) MM in FIFA10 is *no better* than MM in FIFA09

both are disappointing ...

But if it is (2) + better gameplay - then it still might be worth getting FIFA10.

Yes?

[calcutta]

In its current state, FIFA 10's MM is worse than FIFA 09's MM because of the following:
- completely broken assist-tracking.
- complete lack of injuries, even though this has always been an issue.
- incorrect formats for alot of competitions; i can already confirm the A-League playoffs are wrong, and the EA forum members have confirmed that the Belgian league playoffs are missing and the in-game EFA Trophy format is still based on 8 groups of 5 teams rather than the new Europa League format...it would not surprise me if the MLS, Championship etc playoffs are either wrong or missing.
- although it hasn't happened to me (since i haven't signed any players yet) the plethora of bugs affecting transfers such as loaned out players being sold, and signed players completely disappearing from your team etc.

Even if the above problems are patched before the US release, IMO, that would only make the MM in 10 no better than 09. The only real improvements i've seen is that now i can freely edit kit numbers, and now finally there is a dedicated 'Transfer Summary' section which lists all completed transfers by both your team and CPU teams.

Still a bit early to comment on transfer realism (and whether or not the clubs use their newly acquired players) and simulated results realism....ie: playing as Man City, will i be competing with the likes of Arsenal and Liverpool for a place in the big 4, or team like Stoke and Wolves?

[calcutta]

Mucked around with Transfers in my Manchester City MM a bit, just selling players since i didn't need to buy anyone.

CPU OFFERS FOR MY PLAYERS
Here's who i listed and sold/loaned:
Benjani (ST) - sold to Manchester Utd for £4,927,990 (above market value, after i rejected an below market value bid from Wolfsburg the week before)
Michael Johnson (CM) - sold to Wolves for £3,103,000 (above market value, after i rejected an below market value bid from Manchester United the week before)
Javan Vidal (20yo RB) - sold to Blackburn for £946,010
Ben Mee (19yo LB) - loaned to Sunderland
Scott Kay (19yo CM) - loaned to Stoke City

I wanted to see whether or not the sold players would actually play for their new clubs, I don't expect the loanees to play at all...i'm just keen to see if their new clubs would sell them as has been reported on the EA forums. At the end of the same transfer window, both loanees are still at those clubs.

I also put high profile players on the market for two weeks just to see what offers i'd get, but i didn't sell any:

Emmanuel Adebayor - Liverpool first week, Chelsea second week
Vincent Kompany - Aston Villa first week, Chelsea second week
Robinho - Chelsea made two offers in the two weeks he was listed

So i'm glad i wasn't getting offers from nobodies, i felt the teams who were offering for my stars were fairly realistic. Chelsea even offered above market value for all 3 players inthat second week.

CPU-TO-CPU TRANSFERS
In terms of CPU-to-CPU transfers, this is what went down:
- Demy de Zeeuw, from Ajax to Manchester Utd for £5,025,000
- Lolo, from Sevilla to Manchester Utd for £2,900,000
- Fabio, from Manchester Utd to Real Madrid for ?
- Fabio, from Real Madrid to Real Zaragoza for £1,600,000 (yep same player as above in the same transfer window...only this transaction shows up in the transfer summary though, which is why i can't add the price for above)
- Ritchie de Laet, from Manchester Utd to Brondby for £1,200,000
- Stephan Lichsteiner, from Lazio to Slavia Praha for £2,000,000
- Paul Stalteri, from Monchengladbach to Aston Villa for £1,200,000
- Jonathan Spector, from West Ham to Dundee Utd for £900,000
- Marco Pisano, from Torino to Arminia Bielefield for ?
- Marco Pisano, from Arminia Bielefield to Real Zaragoza for £1,100,000 (yep same deal as Fabio, he's gone from Italy to Germany to Mexico in a matter of weeks...)
- Gregory Dufer, from Standard Liege to Marseille for £2,000,000
- Gregory Vignal, from Birmingham to Leeds Utd for £570,000

A total of 120 transfers were made during the window - all the rest involved players i've never heard of - not including players who were traded a second time. There were quite a few high profile players who were transfer listed, like Sergio Ramos, Yuri Zhirkov and Aly Cissokho, but none of those players moved clubs. Demy de Zeeuw's transfer was the most expensive of the window.

OTHER POINTS OF INTEREST
- you always only get one offer per week per player you list on the market, like in FIFA 09

- except one offer from a Brazilian club, the only offers for my players offered on loan were from fellow EPL teams...no lower league English clubs made any offers.

- it seems almost all players transferred to CPU clubs are assigned number 2 regardless of position...Benjani, Johnson, Dufer and Fabio for example all wear #2 at their new clubs. Former Man Utd #2 Gary Neville now has #30...de Zeeuw was given #20. The players i loaned out were given numbers in the 50's though.

- despite being active in the window, Man Utd have NOT used any of their new signings 3 EPL games into the season (you can view games played in the stats section). I know its very early, but its a bit worrying, more so when i've noticed that even established players like Valencia, Nani, Park, Fletcher and Anderson also have 0 games played too. 12 of Utd's players have played all three matches (which indicates they used the same sub for each game, probably Owen coming on for a striker) and two others have played 1 game each, the rest all 0. It's similar for all other teams in my EPL. Hopefully they do change it up during the course of the season.

[calcutta]

Simmed the rest of my season, here's some more stuff about transfers:

Quote: Originally Posted by calcutta

CPU-TO-CPU TRANSFERS In terms of CPU-to-CPU transfers, this is what went down: - Demy de Zeeuw, from Ajax to Manchester Utd for £5,025,000 - Stephan Lichsteiner, from Lazio to Slavia Praha for £2,000,000 - Paul Stalteri, from Monchengladbach to Aston Villa for £1,200,000 - Jonathan Spector, from West Ham to Dundee Utd for £900,000

^ ALL these players above were sold off to new clubs in January 2010! Demy de Zeeuw went to St Etienne, Lichsteiner to FC Barcelona! Stalteri to Hull, and Spector was sold to some random club i've never heard of (because i'm now in my second season, i can't view transfer history of the first season so don't know what club he went and what fees they were all re-sold for). Strangely, i've tried searching by surname for Spector in my second season but he doesn't show up in the results...?

Quote: Originally Posted by calcutta

- you always only get one offer per week per player you list on the market, like in FIFA 09

Based on my Jan 2010 experience, this is not actually true. I put Petrov, Tevez, SWP and Robinho on the market in the first week of Jan...after simming the first week, i got one offer for each player but in the next weeks of the window, only the first three were getting offers, not Robinho anymore. I never received bids from multiple teams for the one player in the same week though, which is a little disappointing.

These are the clubs that made offers for each player per week:
Petrov - Wigan, Schalke 04, Tottenham, Wigan again
Tevez - Liverpool, Manchester Utd (lol), Barcelona, Inter Milan
SWP - Chelsea, Tottenham, Tottenham again, Liverpool
Robinho - Chelsea in the first week only, none in any other week (even though he was still transfer listed)

Again i'm pretty happy with the calibre of teams making those offers for my players. I only sold off Martin Petrov, to Wigan in that last week. Unfortunately i already played Wigan twice that season, so i'd have to wait until 2010/11 to see if they played him against me.

Quote: Originally Posted by calcutta

I wanted to see whether or not the sold players would actually play for their new clubs, I don't expect the loanees to play at all...i'm just keen to see if their new clubs would sell them as has been reported on the EA forums. At the end of the same transfer window, both loanees are still at those clubs.

When i played Man Utd in round 12, neither de Zeeuw nor Benjani made an appearance, nor any of their other signings. Looking at Utd's stats, de Zeeuw only made 3 appearances before being sold in Jan, Benjani made 3 appearances all season long!

The guy i loaned to Sunderland, Ben Mee, rejoined my squad at the end of the season, but unsurprisingly made 0 appearances while on loan. No word about the guy at Stoke, there was no option to set number of weeks/months to loan out when a club offered to take a player on loan, so i assume its until the end of the season in all cases...they might have sold him, but i forgot to check about that.

On a positive note, Michael Johnson seemed to be a useful signing for Wolves, making 27 appearances (only scoring once though). However, when i played Wolves, he wasn't in the starting lineup...i only simmed the game so dunno if he was on the bench.