Manager Career Mode Issues (Continued)
Nearly seven months since the release of the game and basic or fundamental aspects of Manager Career mode have yet to be resolved. Even when issues have been specifically designated for repair in Patch Notes releases, the failure to test and evaluate new coding, or rudimentary SDLC (software development life cycle) change management procedures adherence, is continually adding to the demise of this gaming franchise. Below is an enumeration of some Manager Career mode problems that have been constantly ignored, or claimed to have been patched over the course of twelve Title Updates.
1. Transfer negotiations where real or generic managers have an invisible torso. Claimed to have been resolved in two or three Title Updates (believe 8 and 9), however, still appears regularly in approximately one out of fifteen negotiation cutscenes.
2. Signing high potential youth prospects who demand 'important' squad roles, even when multiple 77-82 rated squad players exist at the club in their position. Claimed to have been mitigated in Title Update 9, but since Title Update 11 or 12, has resurfaced to September 22nd levels in most instances.
3. Continual player whining and transfer request submissions regarding playing time by players designated with 'important', 'rotational', and even 'sporadic' squad roles. Players with 'important' squad roles submitting transfer requests after only missing one or two matches out of twenty, players with 'rotational' doing so when not playing for three consecutive matches, or 'sporadic' players when not playing in five consecutive matches. The weighting system for playing time for designated squad roles needs to be reduced by fifty to seventy percent to conform to real-life situations. One example, Enes Ünal, a player from Getafe who loaned into AFC Bournemouth in January, has an 'important' squad role designation, and in-game will be recalled by the parent club if missing more than two matches during the entire season. In reality since joining Bournemouth, he has never started a single match (to the best of my recollection), only gets substituted into games after the sixtieth minute, and there have been numerous matches where he has not played at all.
4. Player wage sentiment. The day after every January transfer window closes throughout the course of a career mode save, nearly every player in the squad becomes unhappy with their wages, even players who were just signed at the beginning of the season, oftentimes with one or two demanding transfers. The entire player sentiment system needs to be overhauled with player morale towards playing time, player performance, wages, and team performance reevaluated. A player who agrees to terms on a five year contract in September, should never be discontent with wages in February of the same year. The wage system should comprise aspects of the Madden gaming platform for rookie players, where a player signs with a club for four or five years, remains content for at least seventy-five percent of the time, then at a random point towards the end, asks for an extension. In many real-life scenarios, players are only offered premature extensions by the parent club to double or triple the release clause, in an attempt to recover the optimal return on investment, and also rarely to reward a player who demonstrates significant improvement year on year (Cole Palmer is one example).
5. English Football League pyramid substitution boards. This topic has been discussed in this forum at nauseum, however, will note here because significant time and resources were spent redesigning at patching the Premier League scoreboard and broadcast package in Title Update 11, however, the substitution board problem was completely disregarded. When a player is substituted, the light board at every level of the pyramid, displays green for the outgoing player, and red for the incoming player. On the surface, this is a minor game coding logical error that should be able to be fixed in less than one hour. The problem has remained through numerous iteration of the game, dating back to FIFA 21 or FIFA 22.
6. Manager sacking. While there are dozens, or perhaps one hundred Manager Career mode issues not listed here, this is the last topic for today. Even if all other career mode problems are ignored for another ten years, if this issue is not resolved soon, the game is essentially unplayable. In no universe would a manager be sacked for winning promotion, winning the league, completing all critical, high, medium, and low Board Objectives, only to fail one very low objective and be sacked. Personally, I have been playing FIFA or EA FC daily for almost a decade, and only strive to succeed with the highest difficulty settings. When starting a career mode save with a bottom table or second tier club, the expectations or objectives should match the present state of the club. In reality, I am unaware of any EFL 2 owner that mandates to the manager that the club achieve the round of 16 of the FA cup as a prerequisite to remain at the club. Nor do I believe that any club in the EFL 2 realm is required to generate between 25.5M and 32.8M profit in the first year, when the tournament prize for winning the league is only 1.7M. In my opinion, the largest offender in the system is an objective that has an accompanying timeline, for instance the domestic cup requirement. If the objective is failed, usually occurring in January, a large manager rating point deduction transpires within ten days, however, a two to three point deduction per week continues for the remainder of the season. The game coding should only assess a one-time deduction in the rating during the season. In one career mode save conducted last week, I completed all objectives except for the domestic cup (very low rated), which was failed in the second week of January. The initial manager rating of 98 fell to 79 after nine days, and by the end of the first season, dropped to 53, barely avoided being sacked, even though the club won the league.
