News FMM26 Feature Set Announced

[Marc Vaughan]

34 minutes ago, Woody said:

So, it's an update?

Its a new version of the game game - we chose to 'update' the existing application as otherwise everyone would have to learn how to download their saves and transfer them across (and also reinstall any add-ons they had previously).

34 minutes ago, Woody said:

Tbh it looks alot better but i was hoping for a new game. Still no new tactical updates just roles. Would of loved some individual instructions.

Individual instructions aren't going to happen in a hurry I'm afraid as I'm trying to keep the game relatively easy to pick up and play.

(I do have some ideas how to allow more advanced users like yourself more flexibility and some allowance in this area, but its embyronic at present and no promises in the short-term, sorry).

 

[Marc Vaughan]

46 minutes ago, DoneHisCruciate said:

I see the coach reputation stars are there. Just cosmetic?

There indicate the reputation of the coach, some players will pay more attention to more respected coaches, and the coaches themselves might not want to join a poorer club if they have a high reputation (although tbh most coaches aren't paid a fortune and will go whereever they get a decentpay check ). 

[Arczik]

I noticed that the game takes a very long time to start, it was like that a year ago too, but after some time it got fixed

[Marc Vaughan]

10 minutes ago, Arczik said:

I noticed that the game takes a very long time to start, it was like that a year ago too, but after some time it got fixed

Which device etc. are you using and what setup do you have?

(also have you installed any third-party add-ons?)

[Arczik]

Huawei p30 pro 

 

I have facepack, logopack, but i have this problem last year and the problem was solved somehow

[Sasha]

46 minutes ago, Marc Vaughan said:

It may be down to the leagues you have active - the players retained congregate around the nations you have active, for me there are generally a fair few Irish players because I have England active ... if you don't then that might be the reason.

I'll keep an eye on feedback on this side of things, not least because I've awful eyesight myself - I normally play on an iPad and its fine for me on that (I can read it fine on my phone also, but my phone isn't overly small and tbh I prefer playing on the iPad).

Every year I’m torn between unsolvable choices 😝 

Only two leagues in order to keep the database bearable (I love to review each and every player before starting); or loading one from every continent in order to have enough players from each and every decent nation, and continental opportunities; or loading “odd leagues” only to engage in a discovery journey.

I’ll try Poland, Sweden, Denmark, and two others, maybe Russia and Greece. Oh god I LOVE this game hahahaha 

[Pete123]

@Marc Vaughan - well done on the World Cup challenge. It's a great innovation.

[Marc Vaughan]

3 minutes ago, Pete123 said:

@Marc Vaughan - well done on the World Cup challenge. It's a great innovation.

I'm glad you like it ... not least because that is the first feature that my eldest son (Jake) has implemented solo within the game 

(outside of the challenge itself there is a lot more to international management now with being able to talk to players etc.)

Edited Tuesday at 20:32 by Marc Vaughan

[Lav50]

11 minutes ago, Arczik said:

Huawei p30 pro 

 

I have facepack, logopack, but i have this problem last year and the problem was solved somehow

Yep, I believe that game is loading graphics every time we open it instead of making a "cache" of it

[Marc Vaughan]

5 minutes ago, Sasha said:

Every year I’m torn between unsolvable choices 😝 

Only two leagues in order to keep the database bearable (I love to review each and every player before starting); or loading one from every continent in order to have enough players from each and every decent nation, and continental opportunities; or loading “odd leagues” only to engage in a discovery journey.

I’ll try Poland, Sweden, Denmark, and two others, maybe Russia and Greece. Oh god I LOVE this game hahahaha 

Just to mention as an alternative - if you start the world cup challenge and simply continue after it completes then that'll maximise the opportunities for national team management and range most likely as it has complete squads for all nations at the world cup.

[saccsasca]

20 minutes ago, Marc Vaughan said:

I'm glad you like it ... not least because that is the first feature that my eldest son (Jake) has implemented solo within the game 

(outside of the challenge itself there is a lot more to international management now with being able to talk to players etc.)

Mark, could you still respond possibly?

 

Is there any match engine changes for the new update, because I still feel like dribbling isn’t as crucial in this game at all.

 

Hopefully you respond, and thank you.

[Marc Vaughan]

4 minutes ago, saccsasca said:

Is there any match engine changes for the new update, because I still feel like dribbling isn’t as crucial in this game at all.

Yes there have been tweaks made to the match engine, with regards to dribbling it is important and can make a huge different in my opinion ... but equally it depends on how teams are setup and who you are playing against ...

I'll also (as always) be listening to feedback, watching pkms etc. and tuning accordingly as we create updates.

Edited Tuesday at 20:57 by Marc Vaughan

[saccsasca]

Just now, Marc Vaughan said:

Yes there have been tweaks made to the match engine, with regards to dribbling it is important and can make a huge different in my opinion ... but equally it depends on how teams are setup and who you are playing against ...

Hm, I understand.Glad to see that the match engine has improved 👍 

 

Great game yet again, fully enjoying it.

[Woody]

1 hour ago, Marc Vaughan said:

Its a new version of the game game - we chose to 'update' the existing application as otherwise everyone would have to learn how to download their saves and transfer them across (and also reinstall any add-ons they had previously).

Individual instructions aren't going to happen in a hurry I'm afraid as I'm trying to keep the game relatively easy to pick up and play.

(I do have some ideas how to allow more advanced users like yourself more flexibility and some allowance in this area, but its embyronic at present and no promises in the short-term, sorry).

 

That's a fair point. 😁

I understand the 'Keeping it easy to pick up' idea but didnt we do that when you introduced EME over the OME. Maybe have a version that has the extra stuff then users can choose which one they want to play then faze it out like you did with the OME.

Just a thought but thank you for the feedback. 

[Marc Vaughan]

1 minute ago, Woody said:

I understand the 'Keeping it easy to pick up' idea but didnt we do that when you introduced EME over the OME. Maybe have a version that has the extra stuff then users can choose which one they want to play then faze it out like you did with the OME.

The main reason for the removal of the OME was simply that some features were starting to get 'lossy' with it - ie. VAR implementation etc. and it was challenging to keep it sane and supported, I was also concerned that people might be confused as to why tactics they downloaded didn't work because they'd been designed for the 'other' match engine.

The EME shouldn't be any more 'difficult' to use than the OME was and if you setup the commentary only option (which I expect you were using on the OME) then I expect the experience should (hopefully) be very similar.

Would you mind letting me know (by private message) once you've played a bit as I'd be interested to hear.

[DoneHisCruciate]

@Marc Vaughan so far I think UI is the best it’s been. My only slight gripe is I’m not a fan of the Wmn box next to team names in the job centre. The division shows it’s a women’s team and the team page doesn’t feel the need to have it. You could always just have the team name in that green if highlighting the point is necessary in the job centre.

Or have the Men / Women tabs that are there when looking at the English leagues or the international rankings.

I have no idea why it irks me..lol

Edited Tuesday at 21:13 by DoneHisCruciate

[saccsasca]

2 minutes ago, Marc Vaughan said:

The main reason for the removal of the OME was simply that some features were starting to get 'lossy' with it - ie. VAR implementation etc. and it was challenging to keep it sane and supported, I was also concerned that people might be confused as to why tactics they downloaded didn't work because they'd been designed for the 'other' match engine.

The EME shouldn't be any more 'difficult' to use than the OME was and if you setup the commentary only option (which I expect you were using on the OME) then I expect the experience should (hopefully) be very similar.

Would you mind letting me know (by private message) once you've played a bit as I'd be interested to hear.

Last question, do you have any idea what extended squad movement means and it’s functions?

[Woody]

2 minutes ago, Marc Vaughan said:

The main reason for the removal of the OME was simply that some features were starting to get 'lossy' with it - ie. VAR implementation etc. and it was challenging to keep it sane and supported, I was also concerned that people might be confused as to why tactics they downloaded didn't work because they'd been designed for the 'other' match engine.

The EME shouldn't be any more 'difficult' to use than the OME was and if you setup the commentary only option (which I expect you were using on the OME) then I expect the experience should (hopefully) be very similar.

Would you mind letting me know (by private message) once you've played a bit as I'd be interested to hear.

Id be happy to let you know my thoughts once i've cracked a season or 2 out. I've played the EME version since its inception which i prefer. To be honest with you i really like the look of it. Everything is easier to read(for me).

I've noticed the matches are smoother at the moment to. 

[sahil7]

@Marc Vaughan Let me start with the good bit: I love the revamped transfer values and negotiations. I noticed a lot more players seem to be valued at a very high price and seems a lot more realistic this way, also the negotiations for transfers out are much better. In previous editions, whatever the AI suggested usually wouldn't budge from that, but it's more of a back and forth this time which I love!

Just had a question regarding the revamped loan system, as I seem to struggle a lot with loaning players out
I thought the revamp was to help us loan out players more easily, but instead if I reject the very first loan offer then even though more clubs are interested nobody makes a bid for the remaining window. This has happened on 2 different saves for me and for multiple players as I am a wonderkid hoarder lol.

Also, love the new finances and restrictions. Wish there were more player roles introduced but I do see some nice tweaks in the game engine and the broken IFs from last year seem to perform much better.

Edited Tuesday at 22:14 by sahil7

[Marc Vaughan]

1 hour ago, saccsasca said:

Last question, do you have any idea what extended squad movement means and it’s functions?

By default when you move players between squads it asks how you want them moved - if you unstick that it changes to simple mode and one click just moves them with no fancy options

[Marc Vaughan]

1 hour ago, DoneHisCruciate said:

@Marc Vaughan so far I think UI is the best it’s been. My only slight gripe is I’m not a fan of the Wmn box next to team names in the job centre. The division shows it’s a women’s team and the team page doesn’t feel the need to have it. You could always just have the team name in that green if highlighting the point is necessary in the job centre.

Or have the Men / Women tabs that are there when looking at the English leagues or the international rankings.

I have no idea why it irks me..lol

Actually already on my list - but bugs and stability issues first I’m afraid ..

[d e m a r a i]

@Marc Vaughan just to flag, it seems like the Libero role advertised on the fullback is missing. please do have a look!

Other than that, a couple of observations;

> Wing Backs seem to be very influential this time around - been booting up a PSG save running a prototypical 4-1-2-2-1 and after 10 games played both Mendes (3G/4A) and Hakimi (2G/3A) are amongst the leading contributors to the side. Curious if the same applies to the other roles (IWBs in particular, would love to try out IFBs soon)

> The base release stats for players all around are really high this time around (mind you I've rarely been a release day kind of player, but i dont remember the stats for players everywhere being this high actl - not that i mind, it does actually help make AI teams and all more competitive it seems)

> I REALLY love the match prep feature so far, how it genuinely impacts the nuance for how the team plays out against each opposition based on what focus you took - it also seems to be the case that just auto piloting the prep does have a knock on as to whether your team has a higher probability of performing poorly too, definitely kudos to you Marc and the others for a job well done on this, hopefully in the future this can be polished more and expanded upon!

[onur92]

I’m currently doing a career, and my Champions League opponents are Athletic Bilbao, Slavia Prague, Newcastle, PSG, Barcelona, Spurs, Atlético Madrid, and Bayer Leverkusen — and this doesn’t feel fair or fun. Since the Champions League is licensed in the game, at least in the first season, the matchups should either be like the real ones or follow the real-life draw rules.

 

That’s the first thing I didn’t like. Secondly, I haven’t noticed anything during matches that really sets this game apart from FMM24.

 

And thirdly, the tactical variety that players can implement with their teams should be much greater. I love this game, but these aspects definitely need to be reviewed.

[luke547]

I know this won’t happen anytime soon, the real answer while you don’t admit it is if you were to fix and add and change tweak everything that was doable then what’s the point in a new game every year.

But… why in friendly games can we only have 9 subs on the bench?

In real life most friendlies are used to rotate the whole 11 at half-time or roll on/roll off subs.

Just feel like it ruins the immersion at the start of every season when we can only have 9 subs on the bench.

I and everyone else knows deep down we won’t get any more proper features for FMM26 this is it, you’ll fix bugs and give us a 2/3 month late January Transfer update. (Which the community use Changes.txt to do it quicker anyway)

The real reason is so theirs new features for next years game and so on and so forth.

 

[DoneHisCruciate]

5 hours ago, Marc Vaughan said:

Actually already on my list - but bugs and stability issues first I’m afraid ..

Fair enough! Another one to consider for a might do much later pile…😉

I’ve always thought it would be incredibly helpful to highlight all the attributes for a player’s trained role on this screen:

So that when you’re picking the attribute for a player to focus on in training you easily see how they are doing on the other role attributes. Similar to how it is on the player’s profile screen:

[Marc Vaughan]

1 hour ago, DoneHisCruciate said:

Fair enough! Another one to consider for a might do much later pile…😉

I’ve always thought it would be incredibly helpful to highlight all the attributes for a player’s trained role on this screen:

So that when you’re picking the attribute for a player to focus on in training you easily see how they are doing on the other role attributes. Similar to how it is on the player’s profile screen:

Fair point - its on my (ever growing ) list of things to do

[Marc Vaughan]

9 hours ago, luke547 said:

I know this won’t happen anytime soon, the real answer while you don’t admit it is if you were to fix and add and change tweak everything that was doable then what’s the point in a new game every year.

Yes making complex simulations is so easy that we could obviously fix everything with a wave of our magic fingers, but we choose not to?

(more seriously - there are more than a million lines of code in the game which have been crafted over a period of 30 years, its ludicroously complicated to maintain and enhance ... as well as developing the game I also write several thousand pages of documentation attempting to explain how the game operates (and why) so that new developers who have joined the team have an easier learning curve).

9 hours ago, luke547 said:

But… why in friendly games can we only have 9 subs on the bench?

In real life most friendlies are used to rotate the whole 11 at half-time or roll on/roll off subs.

Just feel like it ruins the immersion at the start of every season when we can only have 9 subs on the bench.

This is purely down to UI/UX limitations and simply put 'space' - at some point it is possible that we might redesign the UI to allow more subs, but in all honesty I don't think its the huge deal you're indicating (sorry, but its the truth - being limited to 9 subs doesn't fundamentally change whether the game is fun and entertaining for most users and because of this I'll be concentrating on other items in the short-term).

9 hours ago, luke547 said:

I and everyone else knows deep down we won’t get any more proper features for FMM26 this is it, you’ll fix bugs and give us a 2/3 month late January Transfer update. (Which the community use Changes.txt to do it quicker anyway)

It takes a long time to develop features for a game and integrate them into the rest of the game, to give an example ... this year financial regulations went into the game.

This involved:

• Enhancing the data for clubs to be able to handle history transfer information
• Implementing dynamic punishments for the clubs (for when they violate regulations) - that is point deductions, transfer embargoes and the like (some of these existed previously but only as 'starting' items rather than things that dynamically occurred during the game).
• Implementing pages to show the above information clearly so that users understand what is going on and feel in control
• Implementing a system to explain the information displayed upon those pages for less experienced users (click on nearly every item and it'll explain what it means in essense).
• Implementing a dynamic punishment system which triggers at the end of the season with a flow ending with a consequence for violating the regulations.
• Implementing news items to explain what is happening and the user to interact with the regulatory system through appeals and the like.
• Changing a lot of the other news in the game so that there are variants which remind the user of financial regulations and ongoing punishments or potential punishments so as to integrate it fully into the game.
• Making all the players in the game react realistically to the financial regulatory position of their clubs.
• Ensuring that all clubs respond to regulatory issues both their own and those at other clubs (eg. Brighton poaching Minteh from Newcastle a few years ago).
• (other stuff that I've forotten)

This was all meticulously detailed in an 80 page design document* BEFORE I could start development on the feature - why you ask, if that isn't done then QA can't understand how the feature should operate which would make it impossible for them to test.

(I'm mentioning this simply because a lot of people misundertand quite how complex game development is)

Its also worth mentioning that similarly with the transfer update - its 'late' because there are thousands of researchers working upon it and not all transfer windows close on the same day, hence all the data has to be collated and brought into the main database. Not only that but it has to then be tested and ensured to be sane and sensible.

Each year unknown to end users we eliminate hundreds of accidental mistakes from researchers where duplicate players are entered at clubs or say a players yearly salary is entered instead of his weekly salary meaning that his pay is ludicrously high etc.

So simply put yes there is a delay in the transfer updates coming out after the end of the season - but I believe its for good reason and that users would be far from happy if we didn't do that work.

*Worth mentioning this is what I call the 'overview' design document, its written largely in 'English' and not technical, there is a secondary 'technical design document' for features which is written and reviewed by developers - most of mine are a lot LARGER than the overview design documents because they go down to psuedo code level explaining how the feature will actually be implemented.
Further from these there are a host of other documents created - user stories, acceptance criteria, test plans etc. (most of which aren't written by myself with QA taking responsibility for several and doing a LOT of vital work outside of the actual physical testing that most people think is all they do).

9 hours ago, luke547 said:

The real reason is so theirs new features for next years game and so on and so forth.

I've 80+ pages of ideas and concepts I'd like to get into the game in the future and work far more than 40 hours most weeks because I'm a bit of a workaholic (my job is also what I tend to do as a hobby).. so I'm fairly sure that isn't the reason.

(quite honestly if it was as easy as you'd indicated to add in things to make the perfect simulation I'd have done so, I have hundreds of ideas for new features, new products etc. - but am realistic enough to realize that not all of these will be possible to make because there is only so much time in the day)

Edited Wednesday at 09:35 by Marc Vaughan

[DanEnglish]

Love the reply @Marc Vaughan 👍 

[DilkE]

Is there already a face pack for FMM26? I noticed that some players and staff are missing. 

[Sasha]

2 hours ago, DanEnglish said:

Love the reply @Marc Vaughan 👍 

Not all heroes wear capes!