The production cycle for Football Manager 2016 has already begun and we are into a very important year for Sports Interactive. They have just released EastSide Hockey Manager after 8-year hiatus (remember EHM 2007?) while 2016 will also mark the much anticipated launch of Football Manager Online (at least in Asia); a project rising out of the ashes that FM Live left behind.
As usual, FM16 is expected to arrive in Q4 2015, possibly November. During the feature meetings at SI Towers in London last year, Miles Jacobson announced there were more than 3300 voted ideas on the table; enough material to work on, even up to FM18 (his words). Apparently the feature meetings for the forthcoming FM are already over, as Miles reported on Feb 6 (relevant tweet). It would seem that the first week of February is the locking date for these feature meetings.
So with the FM16 feature set complete and locked weeks ago, the ideas included in this article can only be officially considered for FM17. However, it is always interesting to know what the community wants and expects from Football Manager 2016, and to find out how these ideas will match the new features SI decided to introduce in the new game.
Besides, there are still about 7 more months that we need to fill with FM15 while waiting for the next one in the series. So starting the FM16 hype now is not exactly too late, but rather appropriate instead.
A few days ago, I created a dedicated Football Manager 2016 page on Facebook and you are all invited to give it a like to stay tuned with the latest news and discussion as it happens. In fact, all the suggestions presented in this article are taken from comments on our social profiles and forums.
If you have a good idea not mentioned in this article, please share it by posting a comment below and I will do my best to assess all feedback and update this piece from time to time. If you don’t have a member account here and don’t want to bother creating one, you can post on our Facebook pages.
Now, without further ado, let’s get to the list of the most intriguing features you want to see.
There are naturally lots of repeating feature requests throughout the years. Some of them have been classified as unrealistic by the developers because the game is called Football Manager and not Football Chairman. I personally disagree. Let’s consider reality for a moment.
What does a manager really do? Does he manage the club’s finances? No. Does he negotiate the player contracts? No. Is he the one making transfer bids to other clubs? No. So the boundary is already beyond realism.
At any case, I think Sports Interactive should keep an open mind about community requests, especially when there are lots of people who stand behind these ideas.
Another matter that deserves a mention is the game’s pricing. However, I suspect this is something that interests SEGA the most. Over the last couple of years, we have seen the introduction of the so-called regional locks. Essentially this means having different retail editions of the game for different regions. This allows having a different price for each regional edition in an effort to fight piracy by lowering the cost in countries where people cannot afford to buy game for the premium price most European countries pay for it.
One problem is that there are European countries where people cannot afford paying 50 EUR and to be honest not even 30 EUR. Another problem is that buyers in countries where premium price is still evident are not pleased that others could buy the same game for a lower price. Add a proxy and it gets even more complicated. So what could be the solution? I guess it depends on SI and SEGA. Are they willing to set one price for everyone? If they are, it should be one in the middle range or a bit lower. Perhaps with a price around 20 EUR there would be 3x more copies sold, but you can never be sure.
An interesting idea (Johnpaul Breslin) would be to introduce a loyalty scheme for buyers. So if you already own the previous FM, you’d get for example 2 EUR off or it could work accumulatively for up to 5 past FM titles for higher discount. With Steam being a requirement for some years now, such scheme should be easy to do. What do you think?
Below you can check out a fan-made pack-shot of FM16 created for fun by Stam.
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Don't forget to like our dedicated Football Manager 2016 page on Facebook!
As usual, FM16 is expected to arrive in Q4 2015, possibly November. During the feature meetings at SI Towers in London last year, Miles Jacobson announced there were more than 3300 voted ideas on the table; enough material to work on, even up to FM18 (his words). Apparently the feature meetings for the forthcoming FM are already over, as Miles reported on Feb 6 (relevant tweet). It would seem that the first week of February is the locking date for these feature meetings.
So with the FM16 feature set complete and locked weeks ago, the ideas included in this article can only be officially considered for FM17. However, it is always interesting to know what the community wants and expects from Football Manager 2016, and to find out how these ideas will match the new features SI decided to introduce in the new game.
Besides, there are still about 7 more months that we need to fill with FM15 while waiting for the next one in the series. So starting the FM16 hype now is not exactly too late, but rather appropriate instead.
A few days ago, I created a dedicated Football Manager 2016 page on Facebook and you are all invited to give it a like to stay tuned with the latest news and discussion as it happens. In fact, all the suggestions presented in this article are taken from comments on our social profiles and forums.
If you have a good idea not mentioned in this article, please share it by posting a comment below and I will do my best to assess all feedback and update this piece from time to time. If you don’t have a member account here and don’t want to bother creating one, you can post on our Facebook pages.
Now, without further ado, let’s get to the list of the most intriguing features you want to see.
Suggestions from the FM Scout community
There are naturally lots of repeating feature requests throughout the years. Some of them have been classified as unrealistic by the developers because the game is called Football Manager and not Football Chairman. I personally disagree. Let’s consider reality for a moment.
What does a manager really do? Does he manage the club’s finances? No. Does he negotiate the player contracts? No. Is he the one making transfer bids to other clubs? No. So the boundary is already beyond realism.
At any case, I think Sports Interactive should keep an open mind about community requests, especially when there are lots of people who stand behind these ideas.
General
- More realistic transfer fees – it’s unfair having to pay 10x times a star player’s value to get his club to let you negotiate a contract, while clubs will come to get your star players offering exactly their current value
- More realistic contract AI as players tend to have very high wage demands for no apparent reason, which gets ridiculous at lower leagues
- A January update that allows you to control the teams from January with all league standings as they were when the window opened (Daniel Tacon)
- Review the Brazilian match-day schedule as it’s currently unrealistic with games on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday (Dilson Monteiro)
- Improve the medical side of the game by having more information available for clubs with good facilities and good physios (Ryan Owens)
Match Engine
- Reduce the effect of morale – it seems like it doesn’t matter what tactic is used and the team better morale will win every ball; tactics should have more influence in a game than morale (Neo Ren Jie)
- Inadequate player animations on 3D match viewer; either do something on par with FIFA games of 10 years ago or scrap 3D altogether (Rikki Birkin)
- Add new camera angle to watch the game from the dugout
- More variation for player celebrations
- Add audio commentary (unofficial patch available for FM15)
- Refs making more mistakes
- Games abandoned because of bad weather before or during the match (Athanasios Cordialos)
- Fix minor match engine issues, such as players scoring at home and running to the away fans to celebrate (Simon James)
Tactics
- Create transitional tactics that account for with and without the ball scenarios
- More advanced set-piece editor (Adam Bateman)
- More advanced closing down instructions – be able to tell the players which part of the pitch they should close down (Koutsoukis Kostas)
- Game should recognize when you are struggling and give you a nudge in the right direction in the form of genuine tactical advice from the backroom staff (Jake Steppi Stanley)
Interactions
- Introduce TV or radio shows you could be invited to, such as Match of the Day (John Reynolds)
- Ability to call a press conference yourself about something (Will Murtagh)
- Add scandals of sorts, such as discuss diving or shirt pulling during a match (Craig Summers)
- Option to convince a retired player to join your team for one more opportunity (Fabrizio Somma)
- Get an email with the fans' top 5-10 signings every year (Kristian Wogtor)
- Build up relations with other managers and be able to exchange tactical advice (Gerard Downey)
- Get to know what players the fans want to see joining the team
- Decrease the frequency of having players complaining about lack of playing time, especially for U21 players and in some cases even injured ones
- Be able to approach agents and/or players to discuss availability prior to making a formal bid (Craig Summers)
- Complain about match officials (David Buchanan-Smith)
Training
- Make training easier to understand with faster results (Gareth Foxall)
- Have option to view and control training sessions – with added feedback from the coaches
- New interface for daily training and its schedule (Fabrizio Somma)
- Focus training sessions to certain scenarios, such as playing with a man down, working on last gasp moments, shutting games down or frustrating opponents (Ijaz I)
- Train foreign players to speed learn the language of nation they play in
- Expand the training options for international management (Lance du Plooy)
- Bring back individual training plans like on FM13 (Lee Timms)
User Interface
- Fix goalkeeper history to show goals conceded instead of goals scored (Wayne Dixon)
- Show goals from all competitions in player’s history, not just league goals (Dejan Srdic)
- Show more detailed stats for players; for example, how many goals scored with a header, with right or left foot, how many hat-tricks, etc (Ibrahim Khan)
- When winning trophies, make it more of buzz – right now it just feels like another game has passed (Rian Coulson)
- History of player value with graphs similar to league position history (Leon Welsing)
- More match day atmosphere with real life famous pundits and ex-footballers alike (Jack Couch)
- Know how many of your fans come to away games and how many to home ground (Peter Charnley)
Scouting
- Improve the youth intake by allowing managers to hire academy scouts who would patrol youth leagues across the world (Ryan Owens)
- Have the chance to create youth/football academies across the continents (Brett Matthew)
- New scouting option which looks for good value (Alex Coffey)
Events
- Introduce player charity games (Stevie Smithdixon)
- Get your team involved in more charity events, such as visiting hospitals at Christmas (Ross E J Colbert)
- Certain real life events affecting player performance; for example, Muslim players playing poorly throughout the Ramadan (Dan Hollingworth)
- More off the field problems for players, such as getting caught for speeding, drinking and driving and other illegal acts (Dougie Chalmers)
Newgens
- Have the power of buying the “ghost” newgens who show up in certain matches in order to fill up the roster for the needs of completing call-ups for a match (Julian Evans)
- Increase chances of your son becoming a footballer (George Clark)
Network games
- Bring back LAN – Online is too slow and makes no sense to use online mode when playing with a friend beside you (Neo Ren Jie)
- Co-ownership of online saves when saved in the Steam cloud to allow behind the scenes work without the other player(s) having to wait for ages (Michael O’Donnell)
Manager wage
Manager wage is pointless, unless you can do something with the money earned; for example, you could use this wage to:- Improve your coaching badges similar to how your coaching staff do, regardless of the club’s financial position (Jake Steppi Stanley)
- Invest in a new club (Rikki Martin)
- Buy add-ons from the Steam store (Umberto Nardella)
Personal touch
- Add relations to put your family members in the game as coaches or newgen players (George Clark)
- Add more personal data for the manager (Zaher Safadi)
Controversial requests
- Less injuries (or at least not so serious ones in high frequency)
- Convert more one on one clear cut chances
- Start lower if you want, as assistant manager or youth team manager (Alek Tymula)
- Have option to start the season at the end of the previous one instead of July (Mark Kemp)
Less realism
- Start your own team
- Stadium builder
- Kit editor
- Have a say over sponsorship deals and ticket prices (Alec Pendleton)
Regional Pricing and a Loyalty Scheme
Another matter that deserves a mention is the game’s pricing. However, I suspect this is something that interests SEGA the most. Over the last couple of years, we have seen the introduction of the so-called regional locks. Essentially this means having different retail editions of the game for different regions. This allows having a different price for each regional edition in an effort to fight piracy by lowering the cost in countries where people cannot afford to buy game for the premium price most European countries pay for it.
One problem is that there are European countries where people cannot afford paying 50 EUR and to be honest not even 30 EUR. Another problem is that buyers in countries where premium price is still evident are not pleased that others could buy the same game for a lower price. Add a proxy and it gets even more complicated. So what could be the solution? I guess it depends on SI and SEGA. Are they willing to set one price for everyone? If they are, it should be one in the middle range or a bit lower. Perhaps with a price around 20 EUR there would be 3x more copies sold, but you can never be sure.
An interesting idea (Johnpaul Breslin) would be to introduce a loyalty scheme for buyers. So if you already own the previous FM, you’d get for example 2 EUR off or it could work accumulatively for up to 5 past FM titles for higher discount. With Steam being a requirement for some years now, such scheme should be easy to do. What do you think?
Fan-made logo and box art
Below you can check out a fan-made pack-shot of FM16 created for fun by Stam.
Don't forget to like our dedicated Football Manager 2016 page on Facebook!