The future of Football Manager

[Utter Shit]

(Copied over from the Steam Deck thread, apologies for cross-posting)

Sports Interactive have announced that the next FM out towards the end of this year will be the last of what SI are only now acknowledging was essentially the same game for the past 15 years with updated players and mostly cosmetic changes each year.

From next year's edition there will be a completely overhauled game. At least that's what Miles Jacobson says, but (much as I love him for his dedication to the greatest game in the world) he has plenty of experience of hyping up massive changes that turn out to be "there's a Cruyff turn animation in the match engine and you can throw water bottles during team talks now". It does sound very promising though - the match graphics feel ridiculously dated now, so it will be exciting to see how that is overhauled.

https://www.footballmanager.com/news/future-football-manager

One thing I'm interested to see is how AI can improve the game. The FM community have already been using it to improve the game in minor ways - you can now download packs that give newgen youth players AI-created 'real' faces, but the technology used in ChatGPT and the like could presumably be used to make press conferences and other in-game conversations much more open, with relationships developing more organically.

[MoreauVasz]

I used to adore this game, my steam account has a whole row of them with 600-1000 hours each.

Not sure how I fell out of love but I think it might have been no longer following football. You can probably go a decade and still recognise the odd name but I've now reached the point where it's like "£60M for Bobward Dogthrup?!"

I also think that a lot of the sub-systems were expanded while not generating a huge amount of enjoyment or uplift to your performance. I spent a campaign focusing on youth development and at the end of the day it just felt like a nice little earner rather than a long-term means of developing teams. Which, in fairness, is 100% realistic but it's not exactly fun.

Playing moneyball as a mid-tier feeder club is something you can definitely do and it's a credit to the game's complexity that it supports that kind of niche play but yeah... Winning shit generates more dopamine than signing a kid for nothing and selling him for £10M.

[oggyraiding]

I'm not the target audience as I don't really know much about football. Had a bit of a play of one a few years ago, felt more like a job than a game, a bit dry.

Used to work at a game museum where we had a huge exhibition on the history and development of Football Manager. Spent a lot of time reading the stuff there, think there were design documents from one of the earlier editions, stuff about how the UK government used the AI or engine to predict possible outcomes of certain political events (Brexit I believe if I remember correctly) which I thought was pretty neat. You can't model Brexit using FIFA that's for sure.

Exhibition was pretty unpopular. FM not necessarily a "gamer" game. I think we only did it because Sega paid the museum to do it.

[dontpaintyourteeth]

The last one I played properly was FM16. I downloaded a demo of the most recent one and got tonked 7-0 by the reserves in a friendly. There had obviously been some updates to the engine that I hadn't accounted for.

It reminded me a bit of when they added "opposition instructions" and I didn't notice and lost five matches in a row because I wasn't using "show on wrong foot" or whatever it was.

Anyway I didn't have the patience to figure out what I missed and loaded up my FM16 save where Wolves named their stadium after me instead.

[Stone Cold Steve Austin]

I gave up on them a few years ago so maybe some of this stuff has been fixed but the never changing newgen youth development was one of the things that finally did me in. If they want to be stubborn and keep 200 CA/PA as an impossible benchmark that even Messi can't have then fine (probably try not to give him stats that your recommended current ability say he should be at 200 though, eh) but if you start 5 games and sim them all for 5 seasons more than likely you'll get at least one if not more newgens with 200 potential ability. If it's meant to be that hard, if the benchmark is that high, then make it that high. And christ, do they have to have American youth development indexed so high that every save guarantees dozens of them with more ability than every American footballer ever

[badaids]

The best version of the game is CM 01/02 which can be downloaded for free and has been fully updated in terms of UI / algorithms / difficulty and databases by the fan community.

No need for these extra gubbins that cluttered the game after FM08.

[buttgammon]

I had to stop playing after FM15 because my obsession with the game was just incompatible with my academic commitments. At the time, I said I'd pick it up again when I finished my PhD but it still hasn't happened (not least because I switched from PC to Mac during the interim and have no idea how this would run on my MacBook Air).

Even when I last played it, there was a sense that the formula had been perfected a while back (08/09 if I remember rightly) and the newer additions started to detract from my enjoyment. Maybe I'm weirdly puritanical about the game, but there was something about that primitive 2D view that made it especially exciting, the amount of thought and energy that would go into the blurry movements of a few coloured discs on the screen.

The game engines also seemed to get glitchier with time, and updates would do less. The release date of FM was traditionally around my birthday, so I'd often get the new version as a present and would be able to start a save that would go on for months or even years on the original version, but that became harder and harder.

The editor always fascinated me and when they removed that as a free element of the download, it knocked my interest a bit. I never used it to cheat, but it was always fascinating to go under the bonnet and see the raw stats that made up the game. I also used to make little projects, such as a Cunts League, based on terrible pitches in remote places and played between players I disliked. I even started a save and watched some of the games at one point.

I will be interested to see how the next version operates and although I've gone some time without playing FM, curiosity is bound to get the better of me.

[Utter Shit]

The pre-game editor is still free every year! There is an in-game editor that you have to pay for, but I don't think it was available as far back as 08-09. I think the in-game editor is worth it anyway tbh, it's £4 and allows you to amend a load of stuff to keep the game realistic, change kits each season etc.

I'm with you on the pre-game editor, every year I probably spend more time using the editor than playing the game. I always make tens of thousands of edits throughout the year to make new games more realistic or up to date.

[Mobius]

I'm pretty amazed they've actually acknowledged they've been releasing the same game for years because they could have just kept that up and continued to make money I bet. They've got no competition.

But yeah I am keen for change, the tiny incremental addition or two each year do not justify a whole new game and so much of it feels dated and rickety now. It needs a visual uplift. The entire media aspect of the game needs redoing.

I guess licensing costs them money but beyond that, it can't be the most expensive game to make can it? It really doesn't change, and they have unpaid scouts doing all their research and stats

[sprocket]

Biggest news for me was that saves will be compatible between versions, it's always a wrench deserting my lovingly tendered newgens when a new game comes out.

[Ignatius_S]

(Copied over from the Steam Deck thread, apologies for cross-posting)

Sports Interactive have announced that the next FM out towards the end of this year will be the last of what SI are only now acknowledging was essentially the same game for the past 15 years with updated players and mostly cosmetic changes each year.

From next year's edition there will be a completely overhauled game. At least that's what Miles Jacobson says, but (much as I love him for his dedication to the greatest game in the world) he has plenty of experience of hyping up massive changes that turn out to be "there's a Cruyff turn animation in the match engine and you can throw water bottles during team talks now". It does sound very promising though - the match graphics feel ridiculously dated now, so it will be exciting to see how that is overhauled.

https://www.footballmanager.com/news/future-football-manager

One thing I'm interested to see is how AI can improve the game. The FM community have already been using it to improve the game in minor ways - you can now download packs that give newgen youth players AI-created 'real' faces, but the technology used in ChatGPT and the like could presumably be used to make press conferences and other in-game conversations much more open, with relationships developing more organically.

Personally, I feel the bigger issue is how poor the communication can be - FM Touch is a good example of that, although part of the issues there is arguably about the actual decisions made - but I feel this is a step in the right direction.

Although some of the tone is a little off (e.g. admitting some of the community's complaints are fair about FM23, others were "both unfair and ill-informed" - if so, trying to engage with the community would have helped that), there looks to be an attempt at actual transparency. Long may it continue!

The move to Unity should provide a stronger foundation for future development. Also, it should make it more feasible not to fragment the different products on different platforms - but my gut feeling is that they will still want to do that.

[buttgammon]

The pre-game editor is still free every year! There is an in-game editor that you have to pay for, but I don't think it was available as far back as 08-09. I think the in-game editor is worth it anyway tbh, it's £4 and allows you to amend a load of stuff to keep the game realistic, change kits each season etc.

I'm with you on the pre-game editor, every year I probably spend more time using the editor than playing the game. I always make tens of thousands of edits throughout the year to make new games more realistic or up to date.

Really? I could've sworn they removed access altogether, I'd pay that for it.

[Mobius]

The Pre-Game editor is free on the Steam Store if you've bought FM23 (it's under 'tools' not 'games' in your library). The in-game editor like a fiver or something.

I have to disable the in-game editor (there's a box to tick when you start a new game) because I can't use it responsibly.

Thanks to this thread I've been playing FM yet again and fucking hell I forgot how your team just turn to shit away from home. Useless fuckers. I got an 'latest transfers' mod from Steam which has Rice, Havertz, Timber at Arsenal etc... the official January update already made us bloody good

[George Oscar Bluth II]

The best version of the game is CM 01/02 which can be downloaded for free and has been fully updated in terms of UI / algorithms / difficulty and databases by the fan community.

No need for these extra gubbins that cluttered the game after FM08.

Absolutely right, it is wonderful. Still, 22 years later.

Issue with the current versions is there's too much to do, too much to think about. If I'm ever unemployed again I might be able to devote myself to it but as it stands...

[Utter Shit]

Not that I'm trying to convert anyone - I stuck with the updated 01-02 until a few years ago and was a real die-hard - but you can delegate any of the tasks you have no interest in on modern FM, so you can strip it back a huge amount if you want to.

[badaids]

Absolutely right, it is wonderful. Still, 22 years later.

Issue with the current versions is there's too much to do, too much to think about. If I'm ever unemployed again I might be able to devote myself to it but as it stands...

The thing that you want from a Football Manager game is that it needs to be just complicated enough but not impossible to find a system that will allow you to take Runcorn to the CL title, but also fast and simple enough that you can tear through one season of an evening.

Cm01/02 does that just right with Fm08 just behind it. The recent FM games are something else entirely.

[Ignatius_S]

Absolutely right, it is wonderful. Still, 22 years later.

Issue with the current versions is there's too much to do, too much to think about. If I'm ever unemployed again I might be able to devote myself to it but as it stands...

That's essentially why they introduced the FM Classic game mode (prior to it being rebranded as FM Touch) - there were players that didn't want additional features and preferred a streamlined version that was quicker to get through a season. In the FM community, people raise this now, particularly with the amount of time they have to play.

It was a feature that was well received, worked well, ported to other platforms - but was it possible to bollox things up? You betcha!

[Ignatius_S]

Not that I'm trying to convert anyone - I stuck with the updated 01-02 until a few years ago and was a real die-hard - but you can delegate any of the tasks you have no interest in on modern FM, so you can strip it back a huge amount if you want to.

You can but it still takes a long time to get through a season and for all the necessary processing to occur. This is one reason why the removal of FM Touch from the PC has been rather contentious - especially after SI said it would always be included - it takes a lot longer playing even when delegating.

[thelittlemango]

There are parallels with FIFA, a winning product continually needing to add depth to the extent they struggled between arcadey fun of banging in goals and the mundanity of accurately representing a high press and the weighting in favour of the defender.

It meant it was more stodgy in attack and less fluid, while making defending more complex and timing based and stilted.

A middle ground of addictive depth was the key but they're still working on achieving that.

[MoreauVasz]

You can but it still takes a long time to get through a season and for all the necessary processing to occur. This is one reason why the removal of FM Touch from the PC has been rather contentious - especially after SI said it would always be included - it takes a lot longer playing even when delegating.

Yeah, I liked 06 but 01/02 was still light enough that you could get through a season in a single session. Later iterations of FM are so slow that I often found myself giving up at the start of a new season.

That slowness also makes longer-term projects a lot harder. It's one thing going 'Arsenal for the Trebble' and taking a few swings at it but long-term strategic stuff like 'Aberdeen to smash old firm dominance using home-grown talent, Euro victory within 10 years' would probably take 2-300 hours of play by itself.

[shoulders]

I'd say the 2D visual in-game model immediately improved the experience versus trying to decipher what was going wrong tactically from commentary captions. While early CM is swift and pleasingly low on bullshit, that is a big miss, for me. FM in the mid-late 00s got the balance right.

The transfer aspect is always mega fascinating and crucial so I spend almost half the time trying to get that right because that's easier than trying to milk results from a shit, failing team.

[bgmnts]

There is obviously a core fan base that stretches back decades but is FM gaining a fresh new playerbase over the recent years? Are there many teens now getting sucked into hundred hour long black holes like 20 years ago? Would be great if so, it's an institution.

I assume it's literally just Fifa nowadays.

[George Oscar Bluth II]

I mean the players can't all be 30 and 40something dads but maybe they are?

Here's a Champ Man/Football Manager confession: I have never, ever, won the Champions League in the game.

[Ignatius_S]

There is obviously a core fan base that stretches back decades but is FM gaining a fresh new playerbase over the recent years? Are there many teens now getting sucked into hundred hour long black holes like 20 years ago? Would be great if so, it's an institution.

I assume it's literally just Fifa nowadays.

According to the link in the OP, this year there were over 5 million players, which is due to range of platforms the game is on (and the four versions) - in the past, it would be under 2 million.

There are going to be a lot of variables - e.g. how often people play, average playing time - obviously .

[MoreauVasz]

Here's a Champ Man/Football Manager confession: I have never, ever, won the Champions League in the game.

Seriously?!

I have won it loads of times but it has always been more a question of finding exploits than genuinely understanding the tactics of the game at an intuitive level.

There was a period when quick wingers crossing to dudes who were good in the air with quick poachers running around behind them got you stupidly easy victories regardless of the league.

[dontpaintyourteeth]

Haven't played any later iterations but the Champions League was quite hard to win in FM16, but only because Barcelona and Real Madrid were ludicrously difficult for whatever reason. If you avoided them it was quite winnable.

[buttgammon]

On my longest ever save (FM09 I think), I had rotten luck in Champions League finals. Even with a dominant Real Madrid team, we lost at least two of them (one on penalties to West Ham) before actually winning it. When we finally did, the winning goal came in the last minute of extra time and I think it's the most I've ever shouted at a game.

[Yussef Dent]

I've only ever managed to get good long saves in FM either as a student or being unemployed. I delve right deep into it when I have the time, but that's generally because I start off right at the bottom of whatever league I'm in so scouting and recruitment take a hell of a lot longer.

One absolutely brilliant save I had was in the Belgian Third Division (Belgium's undergone multiple structural changes to their leagues since), I think it would have been FM 2010? Was with a team called K Olsa Brakel, but the league was, on the whole, vastly amateur. You didn't pay your players anything, so other clubs could just poach your players for sod all. We also had a tycoon takeover in our league, Berchem I think the club were, who went professional but the guy who took them over left after three months but they still had £20m in the bank.

Realising anyone decent I had would get snapped up, I signed loads of veteran players that were skilful yet not the most mobile, and then just used the younger players to do the donkey work to let them flourish. I think my strike-force, two Dutch lads, had a combined age pushing 80, but banged in loads of goals and we won the league at a canter.

Got promoted and was given a very modest budget and bombed out all the old guard and replaced them with the best of whence I'd came on free transfers, plus an Ivorian newgen striker who was ridiculous. We got promoted into the top division and the striker's agent was really soft in negotiations (a bug maybe?) so we tied him down to a longer deal on nowhere near what he was worth. I then finished in a Europa League spot, but had to sell the striker, who was top scorer in the league, to Anderlecht for about £6m to wipe out all debts and knew the good times were over. I accepted a job at Inverness CT in the Scottish second tier, who already had a decent side and got them promoted easily, they were well equipped. Adam Rooney scoring plenty.

Then signed this Norwegian legend on a free https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0hFgn6BxeY after he'd been just left on the periphery of MVV Maastricht's reserves for years... he scored a fucktonne of goals and finished third in the Scots Prem. Then I found work and that was yer lot.

[Yussef Dent]

Editing f*** up

[Wentworth Smith]

Needs an update but not sure I trust SI to deliver. The best version of the current model was probably FM2017, which was the last I could be bothered to play for any length of time.  It was the last version when the UI was serviceable and not actively against you, and prior to stuff like buying packages for scouting which came across as very 'gamey.'

The match day on the last few has been a total chore, from the pointless frills stuck at the start of each game, to the way changing anything seems like a minor punishment.