izigame.me

Small update in bottom.

As a seasoned player and a long time fan of Football Management games, each year I looked forward to the release of the new ones. And while each year it felt more and more like an major update with some minor additions, this edition is the first one where I feel the need to write a review. And it's not because I'm so positive about it.
Yes, I am aware we're playing the beta, and on the discussion forum I wrote I wouldn't judge yet, but a few hours later, I cannot see SI fixing this product.
And I don't even know where to start.
Lets start with the GUI.
It is both counter intuitive and build without thought. Some buttons are in a really misplaced; so badly that you probably will miss them half the time. Other options that are absolutely mandatory seem to be missing from certain screens, unless I'm blind. For example, during the match, you can change players on the field from more than 1 screen. But only on 1 screen it will show the option to have a chat with them. Another example of bad GUI is that you can't mouse over on all players and see their match fitness and match sharpness. Some show those percentages when hovering over the circles, others don't. The bars that show the proficiency with tactics appear to be flying all over the place, and the GUI in general feels extremely sluggish and slow.
But ok, that's only what you -see-. Now lets look at how it plays.
I was looking forward to several new features. One of those is Dynamics. This sounds interesting but is horribly implemented. During the teammeeting before a match, and during the match itself, the whole team is completely indifferent to me, or too busy doing other stuff, or not interested in anything I'm saying. This has been going on since the very first day I joined.
The morale is great, everybody is happy. But nobody is listening. It might be me, but if you suddenly have a new boss; you -listen-. You wont be, and I quote: "preoccupied with something else". LIKE WHAT?!?! PLAYING ON THEIR PHONES?!?!? No. This addition had potential; social clusters within the team, a hierarchy, being the top dog. But they implemented it half assed. Instead of making it in a way that the social clusters are merged within the team and club, it's just an added artificial difficulty. It's not merged into it as a part of an entity, but as a seperate unit. It's not easy to explain, but a few hours into it, you'll immediately get what I mean.
The scouting apparently also had an overhaul. And it got worse. Now every so many weeks, you get to seive through two dozen scoutingreports, half of which are useless. The star-rating, as far as I know, denotes the usefulness of a player for the club. Why do I get 7 suggestions for 2 star players then? Don't I have a head of scouting that can already discard all these useless fodderplayers and only give me the players that he thinks are actually useful?! You'd think that, right? Well, after adjusting the scouting settings, none of that changed.
So no, 2 of their major additions they praised so much, are already irritating and badly implemented. It feels like a rush job, and the setup of the GUI definitely doesn't change that feeling. It feels they ran out of ideas 10 months ago, 6 months ago they thought 'maybe this and that', and when they finished those ideas, half assed, 3 weeks ago, they realised they didn't have a GUI suitable for it.

But, all of that, it's not important, right? Through all the shit, you can still manually find your pearls for purchase, and implement them in your team, nice and smooth. For me, the game is only important for 2 bits; finding and purchasing the best young players for the lowest price, and winning matches.
Before my season started, I wanted one more winger.
This is literally how the transfer went:
> 20.5 mil + additional clauses for that player
>> 36 mil + addition clauses you offered, we want!!
> 21.5 mil + same additional clauses I offered before.
>> OK DONE DEAL HERE!
Is this the 'improvement for realistic transfers' SI talked about? Ok, if by improvement they meant 'same as FM2017', then sure. Fine. Lets do the match itself. Maybe that can redeem all of the negativity now.
Spoiler: It can't.
I'll give several examples here.
Long recap:
> My players with high passingstats (yes, primary/secondary included) are unable to pass over a distance of 5 meter without screwing up. If this happens under pressure, sure, I understand. But these guys have 3 different, clear, options to pass to, yet they pass into the opponents feet.
> Decisionmaking sometimes doesn't exist. I see this happen a lot so far: one of my players has the ball, and one or several teammates close by. No pressure from opponent. The player just waits with the ball when an opposite player comes running in, and loses the ball. I'm not talking about split second actions here; I've seen Ricardo Rodriguez hold the ball for a full 4, 5 seconds to lose it, whilst both Romagnoli and Biglia were within 5-10 meters, in the clear. And not once, but several times, with several players.
> Opposite player instructions seem to be odd. I expect world class players with high def/markstats (again, yes, primary/secondary included) to know how to mark. But more often than not, an opposing player (AMLRC, FC) seem to be allowed to walk freely around.
> Tactical instructions don't seem to always be recognized. I tried playing with 3 in the back, but no matter how wide I set the width setting; the 2 outer CB's are always close to the sideline, or at least halfway between the box and sideline. If I play Narrow, I want those 3 NARROW. Not spread in the complete width. And yes, tactical familiarity is high to very high. They just don't seem to listen.
To give you an idea, I was cursing here at it. My girlfriend came over to ask whats wrong; she knows NOTHING ABOUT FOOTBALL AT ALL. I explain what my problems where, she looks at the screen and asks "so whats that guy doing there?"
Yeah exactly. Nothing that I've told him to do.
Anyhoo, it's 00:42 here, you get the idea. I can absolutely not reccomend it as it is now. The above examples are just a few, but there's much more that is irritating. So irritating, I'm seriously considering a refund.
Think of it like this: if someone completely inept at the game (=other half) can see why it's not working; wonder if you, as a fan, should bother with the purchase. Unless you want to pull the hair out of your head. Then knock yourself out.
Update: Requested and received refund. Couldn't continue playing this, the illogical behavior of my players, the crap GUI and the halfarsed implementation of the new features were too much to swallow for me; and I stand with my original observation on the discussionboards; this doesn't feel solvable within now and release, nor any time soon after. SI really needs to start scratching their heads and look how to streamline their game. Maybe skip a year, and rewrite the whole entity from bottom up again. Involve the community more and look at their suggestions. But FM18 will definitely not appear in my library any more, and from now on I will only purchase an FM if it looks like SI is actually trying to make it better, not just a patch.