Sky

This might've been discussed before but I haven't been on the forums recently.

I've figured out the problem with not being able to make substitutions and tactical changes on the fly. This has to do with FM's highlights system. When you're watching a highlight during a match, and you ring some changes, those changes do not come into effect immediately or even after the ball goes out of play. Why is this you ask? It's simple, the highlight is predetermined. Meaning it's already happened, that block of highlight, such as when you go browse through a match report, highlights are separated into blocks (chunks). Therefore, the changes can only come into effect after the highlight is finished. Which means that if during that highlight, you have a feeling you're about to concede and you make a tactical change, you're forced to sit and watch the rest of the highlight and if you do concede, tough luck. This is annoying for particularly long highlights.

While I do understand SI's motive for realism, ie managers can't just shout out instructions at any given time and expect instant change, the current highlights system is also VERY unrealistic because everything is predetermined in advance. I remember some people once brought up the theory that entire matches are actually predetermined before kickoff, after you've confirmed your tactics and teamtalk, and that changes throughout the game only mildly affects that outcome. This loses the feel of "live match action", you always feel a step behind and you're just trying to change the future.

I think this system needs to be revamped. Maybe make it so that whenever any tactical changes are made by the user, the highlight is scrapped and re-calculated, with the effects coming into play immediately or the next time the ball goes out of play. IRL managers can get pretty furious when the ref doesn't allow on-the-fly substitutions, particularly in very close matches. Another annoying thing is that after you've confirmed your tactical changes, you can't go back to change them. This is extremely annoying and unrealistic, YOU are the manager, it's not like you just handed in your changes to the officials or something, and can't get it back!