FM16 Discussion Thread

Mid-November, god damn. Was planning on holding off some FM career moves till FM16, with release still 2 month off I may have to chuck some of my FM16 ideas into FM15 to kill time.

The game has always been released between late October and mid November, so the release date is not exactly surpsising. And remember that if you pre-order the game you will get to play the beta, which so far has always been released 2 weeks prior the full release. So that would be in the end of October. I personally pre-ordered the game the second it became available and I'm very excited about it, the Fantasy Draft specifically.

And I find people often complaining how there's not much new every year with the new FM release, but you guys have to remember that it's not an AAA title and that it's being released every single year so there's not very much of time to do all the improvements. Most of the sequels come with around 2 to 4 years apart and often with higher budget, so you often get a completely, or at least majorly, new gaming experience. It's not the case with Football Manager, like it's not with any Sports Games which are released every year, and a lot of people seems to forget that. If you compare every third Football Manager, which would be an average time for a normal sequel to be released, you can see some major changes and upgrades.

The multi-platform support is also very much understandable as it's a business after all and they are there to make money. And there is a lot of people who actually do play the game on other platform than a desktop computer so it's even further understandable that they also focus in that area. I don't personally play the game on anything else but a PC, but I find the new cross-platform save support an excellent addition. You can start the game at home and continue it while on the road and then keep playing once you are at home again. Sound very good to me, even though I won't be using it personally.

Overall, I'm probably more excited about a new FM than ever before and I'm a hardcore FM fan who pre-orders the game the day it becomes available, every single year. That said, FM has completely destroyed my social life as I seems to spend thousands of hours in it every year. That's the only negative thing about FM!

I took a look at the release dates of the past FMs a few year back and seeing they went Oct/Nov/Oct/Nov, with Fm15 coming out in November of last year I was hoping for an October FM16. I dig the fantasy draft too, if done right it could be a good gimmick for 1 off matches and also whole-season deals. Opens up the possibility of some fantasy football FM style competitions, all depends on the format SI head down.

I agree people moan too much on new features, the thing I find most frustrating personally is SI purposefully holding off on new features (which from a business standpoint I can understand, but as an FM player I'm sick of the limitations in scouting and training), but more-so the lack of care given to non-English leagues in the game. I'd love to see some new leagues, some working transfer dynamics at lower levels, working finances at lower levels, etc. I'll say one thing, the rep system for managers is the best its ever been in FM, hopefully they don't cock it up for FM16 like they cocked it up a few year back after getting it right one year.

FM16 is offering create a new team, put yourself in a team, create a team of fantasy players, etc.
correct me if im wrong, but isn't that already available in the editor??
cap that with improved manager graphics and i can honestly say i am about as impressed as a tramp finding a penny...

Yes it's always been available through the editor, but most of the average players are really not familiar with it and a lot of people don't even know it exists. I think it's a great addition to the game and makes creating your own team simple and easy and anyone can now do it without knowing anything about the editor. It must be a lot faster to do it through the new system as well. And since it's a feature that's basically already in the game, I doubt it has taken too much time to make that simple tool for FM16 so I see no harm done there.

Yes it's always been available through the editor, but most of the average players are really not familiar with it and a lot of people don't even know it exists. I think it's a great addition to the game and makes creating your own team simple and easy and anyone can now do it without knowing anything about the editor. It must be a lot faster to do it through the new system as well. And since it's a feature that's basically already in the game, I doubt it has taken too much time to make that simple tool for FM16 so I see no harm done there.

The revamped analysis tab is a great example of that. It's needed work for years, even just simple stuff, but they've only done anything about it when they can chuck the Prozone deal in there too. Personally I'd settle for a release with a few new features, better research in South American and Germany and less fucking about with the UI for the sake of it. That and having a Player Search which does't lag like fuck every time you add a condition.

I'm interested in their Prozone deal, hopefully its more than a shitty mutual advertising link-up and brings some real value. I'd love to go Moneyball up in this mug. The one place where FM would be better off being more like a spreadsheet is in the player stats department (not attributes). We could pivot table all sorts of great stuff, key passes vs total passes, key passes in the opposition box, cross completion vs crosses attempted, etc, etc. Combine that with scouting reports that actually take tactics into account (this player is a good crosser, we have a tall ST, our current RM has a poor cross completion, our tactics call for wing play, this lad would be a good tactical fit). Infact you could split the scout reports into;

Transfer and contract
Personality
Attribute analysis
Tactical fit
Current squad needs fit
Misc.

I'm interested in the Prozone deal and all the potential for advanced analysis too.

But I find it more interesting how good an example this is of SI's handling of actual improvements and new features. The number of issues and simple improvements to the analysis tab that have been evident for years is ridiculous. Yet nothing has happened until Prozone were involved. Instead we've had UI changes and editor features hyped up as major additions despite offering little in the way of improvement and in some cases actually serving as a negative (the massive, fuck-off sidebar).

I felt exactly the same about the 3D engine, seeing this stuff about CUSTOMISING THE WAY YOUR MANAGER LOOKS does absolutely nothing for me. Maybe the kids are hype for it, I'm not, but then again, I'm not the SI target demographic. I've played FM since CM, I don't watch the matches in 2D or 3D, I play in the non-major leagues and I just want hardcore game mechanic improvements.

Right about now in my life I have time for FM, so I'll always buy it regardless. SI want to attract the new customers who will buy the game every year for the next decade. What's gonna do that? All this crap with Sky Sports, the 3D lark, trying to make FM into an accepted real-life statistical tool, aesthetic tweaks, app ability, social media connectivity, etc. My FM aspirations and SIs P&L will never match up, doesn't bother me as much as it did. Business is business, SI can't go fixing and improving everything they know needs doing, will kill them in the long-term.

To play the game these days is more or less a full time job, more so if you wish to actually progress through a few years.

It doesn't take much, if any more time than it took before. The game just used to have very limited amount of leagues and a lot smaller database back in the days, which made it run faster. You can still do that, but you obviously prefer the more realistic FM world with a bigger database and the cost of that is the longer loading times, which indeed means that playing more than couple of seasons will take quite a bit of time. In my current save that I started as an unemployed manager I have spent 12 days, 7 hours and 34 minutes and I'm in december 2021 (started in december 2014). So that's nearly 2 days for a season, but I'm also playing with like 100 divisions and with the Huge database. And I just break 1500 hours mark today and I'm now at 1506 hours total, which is really sad, especially since I didn't play the game nearly at all for around 2 months or so.

What leagues are now official from SI, any new ones from last year?

You aren't going to get the first couple, as the depth of player knowledge that they've got almost certainly isn't sufficient to put the leagues in properly (as opposed to via the editor). You might not get the NASL as they've got a fairly acrimonious relationship with MLS, who SI have an official license with