Football Manager 23

[John Arne]

Headline features video released.



As ever, very small changes rather than anything significant.

Most of the changes seem to be things that I'll end up ignoring.

- A update to recruitment including SQUAD PLANNER, which I suspect 95% of us will ignore

- Slightly better match engine

- UEFA Licenses

- Improved supporter feedback, whatever that means

- Season review screen (not sure how this is a headline feature)

Most seem a little pissed that they've ignored set piece creator and international management.

I'm just shocked about how big their studio is now, for what is fairly small changes every year.

I'll buy it.

[Danny]

Seems incremental at best. They really need to overhaul set pieces too.

I’ll end up buying it too though.

[John Arne]

Seems incremental at best. They really need to overhaul set pieces too.

I’ll end up buying it too though.

Yeah, they've got to the point where they can't really make major changes any more - but they should at least try to listen to the fans.

I don't care about set pieces, but International management could have done with some improvements.

[Danny]

Agreed. I saw a few streamers making vids asking for that too.

The World Cup starts about a month after the game comes out. No better time to overhaul it and push it big.

[Baz]

Nice to see they’ve toned down the purple, and the UEFA stuff does look nice.

Agree about the international stuff too.

[Jimmy Floyd]

Is it even possible to overhaul it on a 1 year release schedule? Unless they were like F1 teams and planning for 2025 a couple of years back.

[7om]

Haven’t bought FM since the 2018 version. I did download the 22 demo but it’s so bloated and intimidating that I ended up only checking the Birmingham team and shutting it down. Fair play to you lot who play it, I couldn’t.

[Luke Emia]

Is it even possible to overhaul it on a 1 year release schedule? Unless they were like F1 teams and planning for 2025 a couple of years back.

You would imagine no and only have to look at FIFA for that as well. In some ways it's better because you don't end up with things like CM3 and CM4 literally taking forever to be released when they were trying to re-write pretty much the whole game. But, the other side is you end up with very small changes year on year and it's very rare that they actually do anything significant.

[Giggles]

For me, it needs to be rubbed out and starred again at this stage. Then again I’m probably not the target audience any more.

[Giggles]

When was the last really significant change? The 3D match engine?

[Ian]

As with EA and FIFA they're being actively incrntivised to just crank out basically the same thing every year because people will say "well this looks underwhelming" while clicking Purchase.

[Dark Soldier]

First version since 11 I'm not getting. Each year my hours played has dropped increasingly and its like crack for me if I do buy it.

Worst features video in years so it's a solid catalyst to say nah.

[Spikey M]

Is it even possible to overhaul it on a 1 year release schedule? Unless they were like F1 teams and planning for 2025 a couple of years back.

I'm sure they used to make sweeping changes every other year, with just squad updates in between. I'm not sure why they stopped that.

[Spikey M]

As with EA and FIFA they're being actively incrntivised to just crank out basically the same thing every year because people will say "well this looks underwhelming" while clicking Purchase.

Thankfully it hasn't been completely ruined like FIFA has by that Ultimate Team bollocks.

[John Arne]

I always maintain that the decision to release the game in late October/November stems from Miles pig-headedness.

From a launch and interest point of view, surely a launch just after the season starts and the transfer windows are closed would be the height of interest - and I'm pretty sure it used to be that. But then, 1 year when the game was delayed, Miles decided that it was intentional and that all future releases would be a couple of months after the season starts. But, then why would you intentional reduce your own sales? #Fixed

[Jimmy Floyd]

I doubt they'd do anything other than optimise the release date. People are away/in flux in August and September.

[Adramelch]

I always maintain that the decision to release the game in late October/November stems from Miles pig-headedness.

From a launch and interest point of view, surely a launch just after the season starts and the transfer windows are closed would be the height of interest - and I'm pretty sure it used to be that. But then, 1 year when the game was delayed, Miles decided that it was intentional and that all future releases would be a couple of months after the season starts. But, then why would you intentional reduce your own sales? #Fixed

I think it's always been released after towards the back half of October or November.

[Spikey M]

Primed for long nights, miserable days and Christmas.

[Jimmy Floyd]

You could have just said long nights and miserable days.

[Ben]

I played '22 for about ten minutes (demo) before scurrying back to 01/02. I'm well into my 30's now so I've not got the time or powers of concentration for such intensity (yeah I know you can strip it down but then what's the point?).

[Spikey M]

You could have just said long nights and miserable days.

Alright Mr Grinch. Sounds like someone needs to go to a Christmas Market with Igors mum to get in the Christmas spirit.

[Manc]

Sounds promising.

[Dark Soldier]

Until they fuck off some Indian users running on a 2004 laptop and update the fucking ME and overall engine, its gonna be DLC full price yearly updates essentially, with Miles wanking himself off at his brilliance.

[Ian]

Thankfully it hasn't been completely ruined like FIFA has by that Ultimate Team bollocks.

No but the last one I played still had the same old flaws and a load of annoying extra "features" piled on.

I'd be more inclined to go back to my FM15 save and see how Messi is getting on as Assman for the reserves.

[Baz]

I plan on only playing one save, and that’ll be managing you lovely lot for 20 seasons.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

I will get it. Not sure what my save will be.

I think I've narrowed it down to 3 options.

1. One of my Journeyman saves with loads of extra nations/leagues.

2. Winning the Champions League with every club who has been to a CL final but failed to win (currently 20 teams). New teams can be added throughout the save and some (like Man City and PSG) will probably be knocked off by the AI before I get there. Credit to Thomma for this one.

3. Winning the Champions League with lesser clubs from a famous city/region from the top 5 countries. So FC United, 1860 Munich and Paris FC. For Italy I'd do region and go for Novese (in the Piedmont region and are the only club to have won an Italian championship but have never been in Serie A or B) and for Spain/Barcelona there are about 50 clubs to choose it seems.

[Gray Fox]

You can still claim FM22 for free on Prime Gaming for 3 days...

Last extensively played version was FM16, though 19 did get a good outing. I tend to buy on release every 3 years or so as enough seems to change in that time to warrant it. Though given FM22 is currently 'free' and there really doesn't seem to be anything of substance added to '23, I'm unsure of the worth of it.

Unfortunately there is no competition and so there's no need to put anything major in. I would have liked to have seen a graphical improvement during matches. The data hub is actually really good, but it gets such little use from the community that they could probably just leave all of that stuff as is for a while and nobody would really care.
The UEFA licensing is quite nice though. I hate using the name fixes for things like that, as when you manage in a foreign country all of the awards and such become the full and proper name.

[Raoul Duke]

I'll play it on Xbox for a bit, seeing as it's on GamePass

[Lofty]

You can still claim FM22 for free on Prime Gaming for 3 days....

Grsat shout cheers. I did play it a bit through gamepass on my laptop but it wasnt great as laptop wasn't really built for it. My newly built pc monstered a large database a minute ago so I'll probably just faff with 22 until 23 is cheap/free.

[Giggles]

What’s Prime Gaming?

[Gray Fox]

https://gaming.amazon.com/home

If you link your Amazon account to that, as long as you have prime, you can claim the stuff on that page for free.

A lot of it is in-game content, but they also give out full games for free from time to time. For example Assassins Creed: Origins and Shadow of Mordor are also there to claim for 'free'

I believe it's because Amazon owns Twitch.tv as well, so because that's all gaming streams they put these offers out to mix the two a little.

[Yevrah]

I'm 16 minutes into that features video and fucking hell, scraping the barrel seriously here.

[ScousePig]

They just need to sort out the match engine so that the gegenpress style isn't so overpowered, and make the AI managers more intelligent with their tactics and recruitment.

[Jimmy Floyd]

Sounds like they've got real life football nailed.

[ScousePig]

It's too far. They're on the right track in terms of quick, physical hard working players generally excelling, but there shouldn't be a setup which allows Haaland to score 100 goals in a season or a team to score 200. Or if there is, there needs to be people on hand to reign certain style tactics back in.

I do think it's a quality game, but it remains very easy to create an overpowered tactic which guarantees success. They tried to reign it in by players becoming more quickly fatigued but the effect was negligible.

[randomlegend]

There's just always parts of the AI that can be exploited and they don't seem that responsive in fixing them

I haven't played that much FM22 so I don't know if it's still as bad, but attacking full-backs were absolutely broken for years. There's also usually a stupid formation which no team could play in real life which overloads the AI on a certain part of the pitch and it can't cope.

[Manc]

If they make the AI competent then it will be the best FM in a decade.

[Mike]

I’ll get it. Think I’ll start it Italy.

[Gray Fox]

This is currently up for £28 on Amazon for anyone who was wanting to order it early. I've not seen it below £30 anywhere else.

[wullie]

Was looking to order this afternoon so that's good timing, thanks

[Yevrah]

Do you get a code you can activate on Steam doing it through Amazon?

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

Ordered.

The picture says a code to be activated on Steam, Epic or Microsoft Store.

[wullie]

Do you get a code you can activate on Steam doing it through Amazon?

Yep, I did it through Amazon for at least one of the previous ones

[Baz]

This is currently up for £28 on Amazon for anyone who was wanting to order it early. I've not seen it below £30 anywhere else.

https://amzn.to/3ExG6Yd

[Dark Soldier]

First version since 11 I'm not getting. Each year my hours played has dropped increasingly and its like crack for me if I do buy it.

Worst features video in years so it's a solid catalyst to say nah.

Overpaid on student loan and got a refund so of course I fucking bought it.

Should be beta Thursday.

[Clunge]

Will be buying ‘23 mainly to ensure I can, for the first time ever and hopefully not the last, play as Taunton Town from the off.

[Jimmy Floyd]

Taunton Town are on my kill list for knocking W&H out of the FA Cup. I see they drew with Yeovil in the next round, everyone off their face on double strength scrumpy.

[Waffdon]

Can’t wait to get relegated with Southampton later today because there’s no tactics I can steal and download.

[Yevrah]

Is the beta out today?

[Waffdon]

Sounds like it but I’ve just found out my old man has been playing it for the past week. Just loading it up now.