***The Official Football Manager Thread***

[ggsimmonds]

Re: ***The Official Football Manager Thread***

I'll have to double check but I think the sponsorship expires at the end of this season. Which could be even better if I continue to outperform and can get better deals there.

I'm not sure what to expect on the stadium front. Per the rules of Serie C the minimum capacity needs to be 5000 iirc. But VV have been in Serie C for 3 or 4 years now. On some screens it does say this current stadium can be expanded to 5000 so I guess that saves us from a total rebuild.

So yeah those two things add to my uncertainty because I don't know what to expect in the offseason. Does VV have better RL sponsorships than their level and I'm fixing to lose that or are the current deals rather standard that I can improve on, and do I have a stadium expansion bill waiting for me. (those are rhetorical, don't expect an answer here unless other people have experience in Italy Serie C)

Anyway, I got a 1st round Cup match versus Trento I'm going to get through this morning. Hoping to advance from that. This game is definitely benefiting from my holiday vacation lol

Edit: Just checked, in game rules state stadiums that don't meet the minimum 4000 capacity can be used for one year. So I probably will need to expand after this season. Oh and whoever negotiated the contracts for this team did me no favors. These bonuses and appearance fees are hurting.

[Cod]

Re: ***The Official Football Manager Thread***

I love seeing how invested you're getting in this game! The crazy thing is how much you'll actually learn about the sport while playing and not even realizing it. You didn't do yourself any favors though picking a lower league team with financial issues lol. Hope you continue having fun with it and I'm enjoying reading the stories!

[ggsimmonds]

Re: ***The Official Football Manager Thread***

I love seeing how invested you're getting in this game! The crazy thing is how much you'll actually learn about the sport while playing and not even realizing it. You didn't do yourself any favors though picking a lower league team with financial issues lol. Hope you continue having fun with it and I'm enjoying reading the stories!

Quite right and even moreso if previous experience was playing FIFA. For example I have learned that if I want to run a counter attacking tactic I should have more of a target forward to hold the ball up. Coming from FIFA I just put the striker with the most pace there because pace is god in FIFA. FIFA while fun can definitely distort one's knowledge of the game.

But I'm loving the added challenge of starting at the lower level. Maybe tough to explain but it pulls me in more you know? If I went with a top club its like I can halfass it and still get results whereas with this club I have to take a deep dive into everything to get results.

Anyway Michael Fabbro is giving me something of a good problem to have right now. He's my highest paid player and making twice that of the second highest. In the preseason I had him at RAM and he was largely a non factor in each fixture. I decided I couldn't afford him and had to move on. But then for the last friendly I tried him at striker and thats where he has been since and its resulted in 7 goals thru 6 matches. Now I'm of the mind that I cannot afford to NOT have him on my club.

Prior to my cup match with Trento I had a league match where I basically trotted out my Second XI to ensure fitness for Trento. We fell to 0-2 at HT before bringing on Fabbro as a late sub and he promptly scored two goals and we got the 3 points with a 3-2 win. I have to extend him (he's 26) but hopefully I can make the new contract have less incentives and bonuses.

[Suntan Superman]

Re: ***The Official Football Manager Thread***

You can half *** it at some clubs in the higher tier, and use money to fix some of your mistakes, but you also have a much shorter leash with the players and the board I've always found. At Manresa in Spain I went 12 games without winning, and everyone was still like "Hey you won the first three, great job!" I drew 3 games in a row at Gladbach and the board approval went from A+ to C. The thing I enjoy most about FM is the challenges are always different at each club.

[ggsimmonds]

Re: ***The Official Football Manager Thread***

Yep its a challenge in a different way. I figured by signing on with a club whose expectation was to be in the playout group but avoid relegation it would give me a sufficient leash to learn the game

[Suntan Superman]

Re: ***The Official Football Manager Thread***

Like right now I'm at Gladbach, and my next match is a home tie against Bayern Munich. In the away fixture I bunkered down and switched my entire formation and style to try and absorb their immense attacking talent and because a lot of my defense and GK were new, so getting them more bodies just made more sense. Now with half the season in the book, and the defense currently 3rd best in the Buli, I don't plan on changing much, plus being at home, I really want to try and bring the game to Bayern as I think I can compete.

The futility of my own efforts shines through as I lost both games 1-0.

[mori_lucrum_]

Re: ***The Official Football Manager Thread***

getting the itch again... spent some time clicking around to see what the consensus is on 'best ever' year... 17 comes up a lot, but i also have seen 21 get more and more positive reviews over time. something about 22 and 23 having high passing %s being an issue, but also 21 had great goal variation. its the one i own that i have not played at all. so, i'm choosing to play 21 - unless someone can make a really great argument for 17... but i know 4 years worth of engine/AI advances may overcome the differences in how good 17 looks.

i have every FM from 10 to 21 on Steam, and it was pretty much the only game i played for 10 years. wasn't until 2020 that i had enough time at home to play console again (i've settled on PES 2017 being the best console game). obviously a lot of the 'playtime' was spent with the program on the background/idling, but my usage goes:

10: 54.2 hours
11: 554.9
12: 197.1
13: 759.1
14: 816
15: 1,349 (i feel like this was 50% background, i dont remember 15 lol)
16: 756.3
17: 976.6
18: 981.9
19: 1,152.2 (20 year Melilla save, my best ever, but game is tactically uninteresting)
20: 240.6
21: 2.5 (all in the last day, updating graphics/databases

everything that happened in the sport that year killed my appetite to play FM - empty stadiums, super league talks, squad changes/covid testing, etc. what i loved about FM was creating a story within the ultra-realistic simulation.... but that sort of became impossible. ive tried to fire up Melilla a few times for nostalgia's sake (we won *everything*) but inevitably i'm bored because i've played the same tactics for 20 years and despite winning the finances are always a mess.

so, here we are. i've installed a bunch of dave's realism packs (the youth gens being both way too good and never correctly signed irritated me), flutskin, DF11's packs for faces and youthgens, and a few packs of background images. i'm not sure exactly when i'll totally dive in but it feels like i've got everything in line for a great new adventure.

[Suntan Superman]

Re: ***The Official Football Manager Thread***

My own personal opinion, I loved 17. 21 is one of the ones where I felt like I couldn't just shut up shop defensively, ever, against anyone. A team could counter my 5-3-2 with a 6-5-0 and they'd score against me somehow. 21 is my least played of all of the FMs in my library(from 12-23), except for 12 and 23. I don't know if it ever got fixed or anything, because I did just flat out stop playing 21, and go back, so 21 might actually be totally fine, but in my own personal opinion, it was the first FM that really shook my mostly unwavering faith in SI to deliver a good game.


I've tried so often to fire up the nostalgia saves, but often I find I just look around, and don't feel the story needs anything added.

[mori_lucrum_]

Re: ***The Official Football Manager Thread***

My own personal opinion, I loved 17. 21 is one of the ones where I felt like I couldn't just shut up shop defensively, ever, against anyone. A team could counter my 5-3-2 with a 6-5-0 and they'd score against me somehow. 21 is my least played of all of the FMs in my library(from 12-23), except for 12 and 23. I don't know if it ever got fixed or anything, because I did just flat out stop playing 21, and go back, so 21 might actually be totally fine, but in my own personal opinion, it was the first FM that really shook my mostly unwavering faith in SI to deliver a good game.

I've tried so often to fire up the nostalgia saves, but often I find I just look around, and don't feel the story needs anything added.

exactly - every time i have done that with the old games, its like the meme of Wolverine holding the photo frame. and while i played the heck out of FM17, i don't think i had a one-club save or anything like that. i've downloaded it as well, but haven't spent all the time fixing up the mods etc, so i still might end up there. i seem to remember that being the one where i averaged one long throw goal a game, but it'll get another look regardless. also the dave realism stuff appeals to me, seeing someone look long in terms of how the players generate / develop, because i genuinely would be happy to just pick a FM and play it for the next decade. it seems like theres no way to fix preferences in 2017 to the same degree.

i'm just so happy i have these games - it never occurred to me that they'd take them off the steam store, and now they're even impossible to find on key-shops.

in light of your comment, however, i've decided to run a 2.5-year sim up to today's date on FM21 (18k player database size for speed's sake) to analyze the stats / see if i find anything i dislike. i may do the same thing in FM17 as well... i'll edit this comment with findings.

feel free to sound off on what your desert island FM would be, or which one is the most complete, etc. it was very, very interesting reading about each game's perception over time.... on most major forums, the best game anecdotally seems to be FM17 and whatever the current game is. however, on steam, 17 is the only 'mixed' review game of the bunch, with very strong negatives at the start.


edit: so aside from the whole 'man u wins the title both years playing beautiful team football' thing, the numbers between the sim and reality all line up shockingly well. the goals for / against distribution between the two seasons is extremely similar... but so are things like passing %, shots per game, tackles/fouls per game... honestly everything aside from 'dribbles per 90' is within almost the exact range of real life. its kind of mind-blowing, actually. even things like top scorer / assist etc lined up... i'll dig deeper into why dribbling is lower, but its not registering in more tackles / fewer passes. it might just be a catch in how its calculated. even the league 2 numbers (basic and detailed) line up, which is really pleasing.

not that it invalidates your experience because loopy things happened. man u had played total football and ended up with a half dozen double-digit goal scorers both years. chris wood was top scorer in 20/21 (22 goals).

fun notes - zizou takes the milan job in 2021 and wins the CL (man city wins in 2022). france wins the euro. world cup 2022 sees 3 italian players in the top 3 of player of the tournament voting (lfc's isak wins the golden boot)... but mexico wins the world cup in a penalty kick shootout. si, era penal. some guy called raul gudino does an emiliano martinez and wins player of the match. de bruyne wins the balon d'or year one and lewa (still at bayern) wins it in year 2 (32 goals in 43 matches). harry kane takes the 21/22 league goal scoring title and then gets a $136m move to ronald koeman's barcelona - they also paid 125m for Son the same window. the other mega transfer was 132m for ibanez (roma to man u). i'll save this just for kicks and giggles but sufficed to say i'm satisifed*


* - since i dont feel like playing yet, i've decided to run a very long sim on background. mostly to see that all the database stuff works together, but also because it feels like a very natural use for the software

[ggsimmonds]

Re: ***The Official Football Manager Thread***

Well the cushy part of my season is over. I'm in my mid-November and have managed 1 point in my last 3 matches. Every fixture for this month is vs a team either currently in the promotion playoff or predicted to be by the media. I'm still second in the table but after this next match weekend could easily fall to 6th.

Just lost to Zebre U23 (Juventus B team) 1-0 and making matters worse Fabbro went down with a torn hamstring projected to miss 5 weeks to 2 months, my second choice striker followed shortly and is out 5 months, then I lost my first team LB for 3 weeks.

Playing Juventus B to 0-1 should be a positive, but the injuries rob me of that.

Just part of my learning curve in dealing with fixture congestion. The boys played 3 matches in 10 days and I probably didn't protect them enough. Going to have to learn how to do better at rotating squads moving forward.

Sidenote: Been following Team USA in the leadup to the world cup and FM Berhalter decided to leave Aaronson at home and instead went with Michael Bradley on the squad. Interesting selection

[Suntan Superman]

Re: ***The Official Football Manager Thread***

Well the cushy part of my season is over. I'm in my mid-November and have managed 1 point in my last 3 matches. Every fixture for this month is vs a team either currently in the promotion playoff or predicted to be by the media. I'm still second in the table but after this next match weekend could easily fall to 6th.

Just lost to Zebre U23 (Juventus B team) 1-0 and making matters worse Fabbro went down with a torn hamstring projected to miss 5 weeks to 2 months, my second choice striker followed shortly and is out 5 months, then I lost my first team LB for 3 weeks.

Playing Juventus B to 0-1 should be a positive, but the injuries rob me of that.

Just part of my learning curve in dealing with fixture congestion. The boys played 3 matches in 10 days and I probably didn't protect them enough. Going to have to learn how to do better at rotating squads moving forward.

Sidenote: Been following Team USA in the leadup to the world cup and FM Berhalter decided to leave Aaronson at home and instead went with Michael Bradley on the squad. Interesting selection

If I may suggest, I would get the sortitoutsi or fmscout real names fix, so Zebre shows up as Juventus, it also enables the German national team.

Also to your sidenote, that is probably due to one of the bugs this year that's mildly upsetting, but reputations for younger players aren't built up properly, so older players keep getting more time and it ends in a vicious cycle. It unfortunately is a result of them overcorrecting a previous issue where basically once most players turned 30, you were better off with a corpse, just reversed it a bit too much the other way. There's a few realism packs out there that add young player awards to increase reputation for those youngsters and it seems to fix that problem.

[Cod]

Re: ***The Official Football Manager Thread***

Also to your sidenote, that is probably due to one of the bugs this year that's mildly upsetting, but reputations for younger players aren't built up properly, so older players keep getting more time and it ends in a vicious cycle. It unfortunately is a result of them overcorrecting a previous issue where basically once most players turned 30, you were better off with a corpse, just reversed it a bit too much the other way. There's a few realism packs out there that add young player awards to increase reputation for those youngsters and it seems to fix that problem.

We've been discussing this topic on the official SI forums since the game's release: https://community.sigames.com/forums...h-development/. The developers are involved as well, so hopefully there will be positive changes going forward. I'm hopeful.

[ggsimmonds]

Re: ***The Official Football Manager Thread***

If I may suggest, I would get the sortitoutsi or fmscout real names fix, so Zebre shows up as Juventus, it also enables the German national team.

Also to your sidenote, that is probably due to one of the bugs this year that's mildly upsetting, but reputations for younger players aren't built up properly, so older players keep getting more time and it ends in a vicious cycle. It unfortunately is a result of them overcorrecting a previous issue where basically once most players turned 30, you were better off with a corpse, just reversed it a bit too much the other way. There's a few realism packs out there that add young player awards to increase reputation for those youngsters and it seems to fix that problem.

I got a name fix from steam workshop but seems it is of poor quality.

Can the fix from sortitoutsi apply to existing saves? It took me 3 restarts to even get a career going because of learning about db setups so not too keen on restarting again

[Suntan Superman]

Re: ***The Official Football Manager Thread***

We've been discussing this topic on the official SI forums since the game's release: https://community.sigames.com/forums...h-development/. The developers are involved as well, so hopefully there will be positive changes going forward. I'm hopeful.

oh yeah, SI's seen plenty of my savefiles with different bugs. I normally submit a bunch of db edits for Denmark and the US as those are the countries I follow the most.

I will say, I rarely visit the General forum, mostly stick to the Editors Hideaway to help out with files and see what people are creating.

ANYWAY I really hope it's fixed for the January update, I kind of got my head turned to try a new save but I figure we're close enough to the January update(I say knowing full-well it's mid-February at best) that I'm just gonna hope that gets fixed and start anew from there.

[Suntan Superman]

Re: ***The Official Football Manager Thread***

I got a name fix from steam workshop but seems it is of poor quality.

Can the fix from sortitoutsi apply to existing saves? It took me 3 restarts to even get a career going because of learning about db setups so not too keen on restarting again

Unfortunately as there are db editing files, it is not savefile compatible. There is a workaround, but I think it ruins some of the game so I'm not keen on ever trying it again. Also I've had bad luck with Steam Workshop stuff personally, I normally still just browse the Editor's Hideaway, Sortioutsi, and FMScout for the things I'm looking for.