Chat Opinion: No Improvement on FMM19

[samhardy]

Earlier this evening I had the misfortune of playing FMM20 for half an hour. And that's how it felt, it wouldn't be inaccurate of me to say that the most fun I had during that period was clicking the exit button.

What are people seeing in this game that could even be considered an improvement on last year? It's an identical game with an unbearable and messy new skin and a couple of utterly pointless new "features".

• Reserve leagues - What's the point taking into the account the amount of stats you get? What does this offer that sending your young players out on loan doesn't?
• Mentoring - Ghastly. Everything is based around morale. Whether it says your players are content or not DOES NOT AND NEVER HAS affected their match performances. It's a complete myth.
• Greek and Danish leagues - Get the party started.

My first match

I cba to go into this in detail as the state of the stats page has been mentioned enough. First of all my centre half hasn't even attempted to make a tackle in 90 minutes of football. This happened for 3 consecutive games.

The vast majority of Pickford's passes are going astray. Simple short passes are part and parcel of football these days. Bear in mind this is the goalkeeper with probably the best distribution in the Premier League Ederson aside.

Andre Gomes was playing as a DLP. Makes 10 passes in the whole game. A pass every 9 minutes. I had 50% possession.

Penalties

I played 5 games and had SEVEN penalties awarded during them. What the fuck.

Spoiler

And what is there to be said about VAR? The main complaint about last year was the amount of disallowed goals, and penalties/free kick decisions being pointless as you can already see what the outcome is going to be. Has this been fixed? Course not, in fact it's probably worse.

It's just a messier version of FMM19. I know there's a few people here that hold off for a few weeks to see if it's worth investing time into this game - my advice: Don't bother. My prediction is those that don't mind it at this stage will turn against it before Christmas. And the stage where it gets boring will come a couple of months before it usually does.

The worst thing is I don't even feel disappointed any more, it's a dead series walking and has been since FMM15. If it was a racehorse it'd have been retired 5 years ago.

Only playable if you play it blindfolded.

Absolute. Fucking. Garbage.

[Nucleus]

15 minutes ago, samhardy said:

Absolute. Fucking. Garbage.

The clincher 😂

[Woody]

At this point and after reading possibly the greatest rant ever written i'm glad ive not engaged in a session yet. 😂

[samhardy]

5 minutes ago, Woody said:

At this point and after reading possibly the greatest rant ever written i'm glad ive not engaged in a session yet. 😂

Save the 9 quid for a couple of pints instead mate. They'll last longer.

[Ashez]

Only can comment on what I can see as I've not bought the game as yet, but it still seems stupidly interceptions heavy.T

hen you have the goalkeeping passing stats that I've moaned about for years, if he's on short passing and failing to deliver over 50% of the time wtf is going on? Either the AI is too stupid to score after repeatedly being gifted the ball in dangerous areas or the short setting doesn't actually work and it's kicked long 50% of the time. 

I do love the new stats though, it's kinda worthless if they aren't saved and tallied though, the RB made two mistakes which you'll only know if it's a trend/issue if you remember. I also wonder if mistakes are player or role based. 

[broodje kip]

32 minutes ago, Ashez said:

Only can comment on what I can see as I've not bought the game as yet, but it still seems stupidly interceptions heavy.T

hen you have the goalkeeping passing stats that I've moaned about for years, if he's on short passing and failing to deliver over 50% of the time wtf is going on? Either the AI is too stupid to score after repeatedly being gifted the ball in dangerous areas or the short setting doesn't actually work and it's kicked long 50% of the time. 

I do love the new stats though, it's kinda worthless if they aren't saved and tallied though, the RB made two mistakes which you'll only know if it's a trend/issue if you remember. I also wonder if mistakes are player or role based. 

The gk is way  worst I'll say! They pass the ball to players that haf been marked while on the other side no one was marked

[Chris]

Agree for the most part. Though I'm currently enjoying the game it barely feels any different to previous versions. The engine is a complete mess, and it's difficult to make a tactic when the roles and settings don't act as they should. My keeper is always set to short passing, yet fails most of his passes. My wingers make more crosses into the box if they are set to APs. Every team I play starts from defensive and either sticks with it or goes to contain later on. This make for boring football mostly. And, as you mention, the VAR is completely pointless. 99% of the time the decision is against the attacking team too.

No new roles or tactical settings to play around with is my biggest gripe though I wouldn't mind if they just fixed the ones we already have. 

Also, this year it seems unbelievably difficult to sign young players with potential for anything less than 50m. 

Im content with my current 1k save for now. But I also worry I may grow bored in months to come. Can't really see anything changing. 

[Lav50]

VAR in this game is like traffic light in GTA series

Nobody cares about it ..

[Lav50]

Sorry for double post but apparently my GK tackled someone and won it lol

I didnt even care about this before now you ruined it for me haha

[Seth Anacondas]

Ironically I'm enjoying a Sunderland save on FMM20.

Still I have to agree the game engine has not improved. The 'No tackle' issue has existed since FMM18, I believe.

Additional issues I've encountered include:

• Frozen bids for Reserve Players: Can't sell players I've demoted to the Reserves for cash. This occured after I repeatedly offered Will Grigg out.
• Weird Player Interactions: Player Interactions have clearly worsened. First, squad morale fell when I defended my GK from the media. This despite some solid performances from said GK. Furthermore, the only remedy for bad form is now to fine the player in question. Warning the player is not allowed. 

Yes, seems like FMM20 has indeed gotten worse. Yet it remains so far ahead of other football simulators, I'm not sure much will be done to improve it.

[Lav50]

That is the biggest issue

FMM has virtually no competition on mobile market at all

[Jens]

@samhardy it does baffle me how you manage to remain on as moderator, seeing how long it's been since you've actually enjoyed this game. Taking your review under consideration, how do you do it?  

[Ashez]

6 minutes ago, Jens said:

@samhardy it does baffle me how you manage to remain on as moderator, seeing how long it's been since you've actually enjoyed this game. Taking your review under consideration, how do you do it?  

From experience ranting helps 😂😂😂😂

[Mr Tree]

yeah, think it's a little OTT but that's our Sam, and I appreciate there's a build-up of many years of frustration contained within. it still provides a lot of entertainment for not a lot of money and it's easily the best football management game out there. we do seem to have had another year of gimmicks over qualtiy, but hopefully one year soon, that emphasis will switch

[BatiGoal]

I understand where SamBam is coming from - I call him that when he's angry - SamBam had a mini rant over PM before he rattled the keyboard to the public eye. I kinda felt a storm coming at some point but didn't expect it this early 😂 

He makes valid points but better not to get so worked up about it. Look at it from a different perspective. We're just here to have fun with the boys (and the odd girl as of late) so everyone's got the same advantages and disadvantages with whatever version of the game we're given (except @Scratch who's rumored to have filed every pre- and post-winter update of every version of the game since FMH15). But we're all playing on the same shitty pitch so to speak so ultimately that's why I'll never get bored of playing challenges with fellow Vibe people.. including SamBam. 

 

[Nucleus]

1 hour ago, Mr Tree said:

but hopefully one year soon, that emphasis will switch

It won’t 

[Mr Tree]

1 minute ago, Nucleus said:

It won’t 

i'm a hopeful sorta fella.

and yes sorry, as Bati says, i meant to emphasise too that to be fair, there was constructive and valid criticism within Sam's post, and i hope it'll be taken on board

[Trixxxter]

Imho, there won't be significant improvements in the game. The years will be just passing by, devices will improve and in some time we will have FM Touch version on our Android/iOS mobile phones. 

[Ian]

Scathing review and I can literally feel your disappointment. I am still getting enjoyment out of the game in terms of challenges but you have to remember it hasn’t even been a year since I played my first one so we’ll have to see whether the novelty wears off in time I guess. I know one thing though, in terms of just playing the game normally, well there’s nothing there for me and wouldn’t even buy in it that case if I’m truly honest.

In regards to the penalties, I’m getting a load at Sunderland with Bendtner but not so many in Augusta where I’m currently going for goals in Hole 2. The two tactics are slightly different but not a world apart so no idea what’s going on with them.

[Scratch]

2 hours ago, BatiGoal said:

everyone's got the same advantages and disadvantages with whatever version of the game we're given (except @Scratch who's rumored to have filed every pre- and post-winter update of every version of the game since FMH15)

I don't think my limited selection would satisfy Sam unfortunately:

Spoiler

Though I'm quite happy with the current version. Most of the extra stuff is just exposing existing behind the scenes stuff, but I like that. None of it's crucial, you can probably ignore it and play as you used to, but I feel if adds some more depth (maybe I'll feel like it's slowing me down eventually, but not yet).  

Yeah the game engine has lots of flaws if you look too closely, but you just gotta ignore that. It's pretty much the same as last year, but with less bugs than at the end of FMM19. 

Sam has a lot of valid points, but I'm still gonna spend way too much time playing it.

 

[FuddledFox]

Looking on the AppStore and the game has had nearly 3k reviews with an average score of 4.8/5.

Not quite as favourable on Android but then it never is as iOS always seems much less bugged than Android. Still much more positive than negative though.

I don’t expect these scores to change much as they are almost identical to FMM19 if memory serves me.
Ultimately unless the game tanks in terms of sales and reviews which is looking unlikely atm and with only F2P aka pay to win games as competition I don’t see much changing in the near future.

[Giorgi]

Some of these new features or design things I couldn't care less about. Why'd they change the news layout? 

[Mr Tree]

15 minutes ago, Giorgi said:

Some of these new features or design things I couldn't care less about. Why'd they change the news layout? 

so they could add the "cards" on the right-hand side, innit. a little more direct relevant info, but maybe unnecessary...

[SophiaFM]

I like it. The new features like mentoring, reserves, presentation are all good. I like the bigger pitch and the new ball aswell in game. I don’t see nothing much wrong with it 🤷‍♀️

Edited November 29, 2019 by SophiaFM

[Gs123]

Have to agree with Sam. Use to play championship manager years ago but stop playing years ago and only go into the mobile version since fmm17. Do really like the game but nothing really changed. The game engine and ai are really broke and it the one thing that gets ignored every year

[BatiGoal]

4 hours ago, Trixxxter said:

Imho, there won't be significant improvements in the game. The years will be just passing by, devices will improve and in some time we will have FM Touch version on our Android/iOS mobile phones. 

You're probably right. 

[Woody]

2 hours ago, SophiaFM said:

I like it. The new features like mentoring, reserves, presentation are all good. I like the bigger pitch and the new ball aswell in game. I don’t see nothing much wrong with it 🤷‍♀️

Its a tactically inept game. It lacks variation massively. 

[S4NCH0]

I'm all against negativity this time. I understand the frustration of some here, you guys want to see your beloved game being overhauled year in and year out from what I sense. And again, its understandable. We all want to play with new exciting features and we would all like our desired features to be added to the game. In that sense I'm not different from you. But man, you shouldn't expect wonders from a game that costs 9 fucking pounds. IMO the relations "price to fun", "price to quality" and "price to game-time" you can get from FMM, are the best I've ever seen in a phone game. If you want better depth, tactics, interactions, etc. you can pay the price of FM20 and play it you computer. If you want better gameplay, 3d engine and more user involvement, then pay the price and play FIFA20. If you don't want to pay those prices then you also have the option to play FMTouch in a tablet. But if once again you don't want or can't play those prices, then your option is FMM20, a 9.fucking.pounds.game. 

 

I am currently studying programming and game development is one of the hardest, toughest, most time and energy consuming, areas of programming. One of those features you bash and rant about, probably took a small team of people hours to make. I can only imagine the countless hours and headaches the team must have gone through to get the tactics working, or the horrendous amount of work that creating regens must mean. Yes, they could probably go big one day and improve a couple of major things, but that would mean increasing their working force, and guess what? That costs money. And guess what? You only pay them 9 fucking.pounds. 

 

I don't know about you guys, but getting countless hours of fun, being able to do something while waiting inside a bus in traffic, being able to have my favorite leagues, and players in my pocket anytime and anywhere I want , etc. for only 9 pounds is huge thing. Last year's version gave me almost 900 hours of gameplay which translates 0.01 pounds per hour, which is astonishing. There's few games that cost 0.01 or less that I would play for an hour, just to put it into perspective. Now, if you want to bash a 9 pound game and expect from it what you'd expect from more expensive game, go ahead. But I do think it's out of place and it could be catalogued as whining.

[CruX222]

I played champ manager 01/02 for about 12 years so I can safely say "improvement" doesn't bother me. I've had this from 15-18, missed 19, brought this one. Will probably continue to do the same miss a year buy a year from now on. Same as every other yearly game now so you pretty much know what to expect. Some improvements, dont like the colour change (from 18), but still as brilliant and addictive as ever.

[Nucleus]

16 minutes ago, S4NCH0 said:

One of those features you bash and rant about, probably took a small team of people hours to make

This is the problem. They’re delegating hours and hours into programming features that nobody fucking cares about to be honest.

17 minutes ago, S4NCH0 said:

I can only imagine the countless hours and headaches the team must have gone through to get the tactics working

They don’t work

18 minutes ago, S4NCH0 said:

You only pay them 9 fucking.pounds. 

They sold over 2million copies across all platforms last year. Let’s assume that mobile sold what? 300k? 500k? That’s a minimum of £2.7million from the mobile game alone. They have a team of three developers + a few QA staff. You’re telling me that sort of money doesn’t deserve more investment in future titles? You’re absolutely blinded if you do