retired_halfshell69

Firstly, the paragraph to stop half the moans that i will get for having the audacity to complain:

- I appreciate it is hard to make a game
- I appreciate that FM08 is the best management game available
- I appreciate that i personally am unable to produce a better game
- I appreciate that the game is "playable" before i upset anybody from sega by suggesting otherwise
- I appreciate that the game is "more realistic than ever"
- and lastly i do actually think the game is good

So the point of this thread? I am increasingly feeling frustrated with how the game handles transfers and contracts, and more to the point, how this aspect of the game has not been improved (dramatically at least) in any of the recent incarnations of fm.

My question: do the current buyers of FM think that new features such as "board confidence" and "match flow" are more important than fixing the existing faults?

For those wondering what has annoyed me enough to complain i will list what i feel to be the major faults with the FM transfer mechanics and cite examples, i will not be posting screen shots, so don't bother asking, either believe me, try it yourself, or don't bother posting, i'm not going to waste more of my time pandering to the wishes of pedants.

1) Fault number one, The negotiation process. As far as i'm aware this has been in FM for quite some time. For example, i bid £20m for a player, the AI asks for £28m, i therefore bid £25m, the AI asks for £30m, i tihnk they're playing hardball so i decide that the original £28m wasn't that bad so bid £28m, the AI asks for £35m. I cancel the transfer, wait a day, and enquire, the AI asks for £18m. If there is anybody that feels that this is realistic please feel free to step forward.
Now i acknowledge that this has improved for FM08, but it is still far too common an occurance for my liking.

2) AI enquiries. AI makes an enquiry for one of my players, i tell him how much i want, the AI says no thanks. The next week, the AI asks how much for a player, i tell him the same number, the AI says no thanks...repeat indefinitely. This is comical. Firstly, why does the AI have to enquire when i have purposefully set an acceptable value? Secondly, why does the AI think the value will drop every 2 days?

3) AI valuation of players. User is chelsea, AI as AC makes a bid for cech of 12.5m, truly comical, the player is happy, being used regularly and is "indespensible to the club", similarly the club is in no sort of financial trouble, so why does the AI think this is in any way acceptable? So as to test this, i changed it so the user was AC, i made a bid of 12.5m for cech, no prizes for guessing what happened, bid rejected, which leads me to my point, why does the AI appear to think the user has a lower valuation of players than the AI?

4) Contracts. I am £115kp/w under my wage budget, i try signging a player, he asks for £35kp/w the board limit the wage to £30kp/w....why oh why oh why, the club is in a fantastic financial position, the player is substantially better than those in my teams, and there are players with over £50kp/w in my team, so why is the board preventing me form using my wage budget? Similarly, in a different save, for a player that was willing to sign for me i was allowed to offer him £25kp/w, for a player that was not interested in signing for me i was allowed to offer him £90kp/w. When the latter wanted to sing for me i was only allowed to offer him £25kp/w, what the hell is going on????? When a player is not interested i have a sufficient budget, but when the player becomes intersted the board prevent me from offering him the wages i previously could, why does this happen???

5) Contracts - player expectations vs club rep. User is PSV, offered to loan makelele, player rejected, he would rather play in the reserves of the EPL than play in the chapions league, he had been transfer listed for 16months, had not played a single competitive game, why then did he not want to move to a club in the champions league?
Similarly, MANY cases of players turning down wage offers to move to clubs in a lower division for less money, or most hilariously to retire at the age of 23. I know this is to do with club rep, but why can't this be fixed???

6) Wonderkids. Is there some sort of "block" to prevent them from being signed for compensation only? E.g. User as chelsea, offered kroos £120kp/w he turned it down and signed for bayern for much £250p/w, i then enquired for him, bayern asked for £500k, i bid, he then accepted a contract for £1000p/w and moved to me. Why in a space of 3 days did the player go from rejecting £120kp/w to accepting £1kp/w??? He had not signed a pre contract with bayern.

7) Teams/players considering offers individually. example; User is Barce, user bid £30m + Deco for Gattuso, AI said no. AI bid £35m for deco, User accepted, User bid £25m for gattuso, AI accepted..... anybody think this is strange? The same con be applied to players and contract offers, at no point does the aI appear to consider other offers when it debates a response.

8) Selling Players I will firstly point out that boularouz (sorry for spelling) and titus bramble both found employers this summer. Why then is it not possible to sell claude makelele or wayne bridge for £0? Why do some players that would fit into most prem clubs retire aged 25? The way the AI works needs to be changed, in too many cases it is impossible to shift players, i'm not talking about getting a decent amount for them, but just getting rid.

Right, rant over. I fully acknowledge this post is long, and it will therefore plummet form these pages as most of my other threads have done, but hopefully someone from SI will notice it before then.

I just want to know why these things haven't been changed, and whether users would rather half half finished new features like the board confidence rather than fix these problems?

Note, i'm not saying board confidence was a bad idea, just that it was badly executed.

Now i know SI will have an order in which new features or fixes are tackled (a road map or whatever you may call it in the game industry) but i can only express puzzlement that borders on alarm that fixing the existing features ranks below adding new features; sure new features may draw in new customers, but i feel that the majority of long standing customers would rather many of the basic things were fixed.

Cheers

retired_kellynew1212

I just sold Lulinha for £22.5m. I'm happy

retired_paulette

Lots of reading and some good points

retired_WOWBootyCamp

Good post!.

retired_kelseyhi

I completely agree with all the criticisms.

spacy_taz

Excellent post. This happens in LLM as well (obviously with less cash involved and a severe lack of wonderkids).

Question is, when will it get sorted, if at all? :p

retired_GoBlue31

Excellent post.

As it happens I was just trying to note down some of my feelings on the transfer system to make a reasoned post but you seem to have covered almost everything.

One thing which bothers me, and it has been like this for as far back as I can remember - probably even as far back as the CM3 series. You are chasing a player and the AI reject all your bids even if you are offering way over the value of the player. Then suddenly a few weeks later the AI bid the actual value of the player and it is accepted! Of course you can then bid the value of the player and get the bid accepted too. It just seems like the AI know when other AI managers are willing to sell players.

My other gripe with negotiations is when they offer you a player plus some cash. You have no interest in the player, remove him from the deal but ask for exactly the same money. They reject it despite you actually asking for less ! I know in some circumstance clubs may be borderline on their wage budget but I have had this a lot with top clubs who i'm certain have loads of cash flowing.

As for selling players, I will leave you with this statistic. I'm in 2013 and my total transfer spending is around £250,000,000. My total transfer income is £4,100,000. I think i've managed to sell 3 players for money in 7 seasons. I can't even give, GOOD players away, I just don't understand why the AI wont look at them. For me this is worse than it has ever been in FM08. I honestly haven't even had a bid for one of my first team players in 7 seasons ! I had a couple of enquiries a couple of seasons back but that is it. My players are not bad, I have won the PL etc.

Even so far into the game the AI teams are almost the same as at the start of the games, none of them seem to be buying anyone. Occasionally they make a big signing but they never seem to sign any cover, fringe players or potential players.

Another issue is players seem perfectly happy to rot in a teams reserves for 3 years rather than join another club, rejecting contracts because they want "higher appearance fees" etc

To move forward there needs to be significant improvement in the way negotiations work, the transfer market needs a massive increase in activity.

I'm really worried for the future of FM. So much has stagnated, nothing at all has moved forward since the last version. Buying and selling players should be at the forefront of any management game yet it is one of the poorest areas.

retired_mjisty30

The first two points are especially annoying, spot on.

retired_amcruz28

I agree with all the points you made buddy.

retired_dnguyen16

Even worse after a year of rotting in the reserves of an elite club, transfer listed by request due to a lack of first team opportunities, and yet they refuse a transfer to a team in the same division, on the same wages, because they feel it would be a step backward in their careers. Don't worry lad, Real will be bidding on you any day now, just keep plugging away in the reserves, you're sure to get noticed there.