CMS General Discussion Thread

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@Danimal5981 wrote:

@JustinCase0110  I think it's currently just the two of us: @thurlow885 @CO88LER5 @LABoog4 have gone to greener pastures?

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Yeah it looks like it. It's pretty much how it always is. A few weeks of nice traffic on the forum, then people falling off one by one. Then a few months of solitude here, before some writers return in the spring or in February after the closing of the transfer window.

I don't pay if too much mind. I do enjoy the "busy" weeks most, but I also understand how time-consuming it is to indulge in Career Mode Stories, playing and writing stories in detail. There are always these grand openings with brilliant ideas, and then we never come out of September, before the writer has gone AWOL and is never heard from again, haha...

It's too bad, but one just has to accept that creating this content is for one's own pleasure and not for anyone else. If I expected a lot of feedback along the way, I would just end up disappointed.

Another thing: Live starts now works. Started up with Man United last night (and drew 0-0 with Ipswich Town in Amorim's first game). It seems to work just fine, from what I've seen so far. League tables, stats, European games etc are all up to date. Maybe this fact could lure one or two writers back into the fold.

@Danimal5981Just got too much going on at the moment to devote to writing up a story. I'd like to, but the circumstances simply don't allow.

But see above...

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@CO88LER5 wrote:
...and I really enjoyed watching City get pasted by Spurs yesterday evening!

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Who didn't? 😃

I agree that the United squad is thin. So with the current squad I'd also say that you're asking for trouble, if you field a whole 'second team' for European games. I almost can't imagine how that lineup must have been.

Don't you find it easy enough to keep players fit for most games? I often sub one or two players at half time or within the first 10-15 minutes of the second. The rest of the subs are made around 70 minutes, I think, sometimes tactical to get a result, or with the purpose of resting key players and/or play some reserves/youngsters, if I already have the result I want. With this approach I never have to field a full 'second team', which also isn't often the case for these clubs anyway. Unless they play an amateur side or something.

The settings are frustrating. I startet quite a few careers, before I found the one I wanted to continue with. And I always seem to forget what to choose in all these different choices and settings. Some of them were also bugged at the time, and it's awful that you can't change these things along the way, if something doesn't work properly or doesn't fit your preference in the game.

Yup, similar here (game tactics, game settings) - for me, the main frustration is that they don't keep national leagues and uefa rankings up to date. In Holland, 4 teams are always in a play-off for the last available spot in European Conference League and on top, as 6th team in the rankings we provide six teams, not five.

What I do like, was when I was far down against PSV and Sociedad and the AI started to control the game. No way for me to pull one back, but at least it's exactly what quality teams would do in real life. And by now it reverted back to immediate, but the delay in making a sub and it actually happening on the pitch was something that I enjoyed too - that's the way it goes in real life as well. The new transfer and academy system are an improvement and require you to stay alert - that's an improvement in my view as well.

@JustinCase0110
I was trying a 'second team' to see what they would be like.  It included the likes of Bayindir, Maguire, Lindelof, Malacia, Collyer, Antony and so on...
Anyhow, I re-started the career with the scouting, etc., settings I wanted and I am now trying out Amorim's 3-4-2-1 formation. I picked the start date of when he started, i.e., after Ruud's matches.
With the squad I (and he) have got, I can't see it working for long - too many square pegs in round holes. About to play City, which I expect to get beaten against.
In the transfer window to come, I'm going to see whether I can fill some of those round holes, but the career I'm playing will mean cheap 'potential' players, even though the game has rather illogically given me something like £130 million to spend. I'm not going to do anything like that, because I'm in the head space that says two things:
1) we really shouldn't have much money (as in real life)
2) I'm working on the basis that real 'quality' players with a proper career in mind won't come to United at the moment, given how many careers we've destroyed...
Going to be interesting to see how it pans out.

@CO88LER5  Athletes and professional sports people have huge egos: each time there'll be a handful that think: "I am going to be the one who turns it around at Man Utd..." - really, a lot think that way, also because the one that sooner or later will bring back glory is going to be considered a club legend: the one that ended the drought.

And they tried it with the biggest managers (Van Gaal, Mourinho) and with a proper club person (Solskjaer), they tried it with esteemed veterans (Ronaldo, Eriksen), with half of the 2019 successful Ajax-team (and staff), I mean: they literally tried everything in every way for the last decade.

It's a little too late for it now, but in my view they actually ought to talk down expectations (get the pressure off), reset and reboot and aim for success in -say- 2028, according to a three-year plan. Buy yourself time and space to implement a structure, an organization, a vision, an image, etc etc. similar to what happened at Liverpool when Klopp joined, or Arteta at Arsenal - they also made it very clear that they do expect a high level instantly, but trophies and silverware a little later. Man U need to apply the same strategy, which comes down to clear communication to the fans and clever marketing to the outside world: they are a big brand after all.

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@Danimal5981 wrote:

It's a little too late for it now, but in my view they actually ought to talk down expectations (get the pressure off), reset and reboot and aim for success in -say- 2028, according to a three-year plan. Buy yourself time and space to implement a structure, an organization, a vision, an image, etc etc. similar to what happened at Liverpool when Klopp joined, or Arteta at Arsenal - they also made it very clear that they do expect a high level instantly, but trophies and silverware a little later. Man U need to apply the same strategy, which comes down to clear communication to the fans and clever marketing to the outside world: they are a big brand after all.

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You probably don't know this, but this is EXACTLY what they are doing right now. They have headhunted people like Omar Berrada, Dan Ashworth, Jason Wilcox and Christopher Vivell to make sure the club has qualified people working in the machine room. Contrary to recent years with Ed Woodward, John Murtough and Richard Arnold pulling the strings with a pretty poor track record as the result.

In terms of expectations they may not have said explicitely that they aren't aiming for titles right now. That may also sound a bit hollow with two titles won in the last two seasons. But they do actually have a plan - Project 150 - aiming to win the title in 2028, just as you are proposing. You can read more about this here.

https://thebusbybabe.sbnation.com/2024/10/16/24271227/ratcliffe-ineos-show-their-priorities-are-not-in-the-present

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@CO88LER5 wrote:

I was trying a 'second team' to see what they would be like.  It included the likes of Bayindir, Maguire, Lindelof, Malacia, Collyer, Antony and so on...
Anyhow, I re-started the career with the scouting, etc., settings I wanted and I am now trying out Amorim's 3-4-2-1 formation. I picked the start date of when he started, i.e., after Ruud's matches.
With the squad I (and he) have got, I can't see it working for long - too many square pegs in round holes. About to play City, which I expect to get beaten against.
In the transfer window to come, I'm going to see whether I can fill some of those round holes, but the career I'm playing will mean cheap 'potential' players, even though the game has rather illogically given me something like £130 million to spend. I'm not going to do anything like that, because I'm in the head space that says two things:
1) we really shouldn't have much money (as in real life)
2) I'm working on the basis that real 'quality' players with a proper career in mind won't come to United at the moment, given how many careers we've destroyed...
Going to be interesting to see how it pans out.

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Square pegs in round holes? Are you referring to players playing out of position?

I tend not to pay this too much mind. If a player works in that role in real life IMO, I won't hesitate using him there in the game as well. Mazraoui as a right centerback for instance. I think he has minus 3 in the game, when I put him there. But he's been a top 3 performer in every game under Amorim in that role so far. So that is also where I'll use him, when I play with them in game. I do use the training/player development to adjust him better to the position though.

I agree with you in regards to the £130M being a bit over the top. United already have some good talents in Yoro, Mainoo, Garna, Amad and Højlund, and if you nurture their development and add a few quality players, you could easily assemble a title-winning squad here.

I also started with the 3-4-2-1 formation, but had a hard time getting them to play the way I wanted and the way Amorim seems to want them to play. After a few games I tweaked it some, so it was more a 3-1-4-2 formation with a regular CDM in Ugarte, whilst Bruno dropped a bit to play the CM/CAM next to Mount or Mainoo. The other "number 10" in the system would then have to be used as a striker in this formation, but instructing him to go wide and deep seemed to make it work all right. My results drastically improved, once I used this formation in stead. I've only played a few games though, so it's just my early thoughts about it, trying to get the feel of the Live Start option.

I can still remember Ron Atkinson, but more from his roles after Man United - Villa and Wednesday in particular. His 2nd place with Villa is still the best a manager from England has ever achieved in the modern Prmier league as we know it.

The big difference is however, after Busby it went down 5 years to the point they actually relegated and from there, with tiny steps it got better and better again until the big bang under Ferguson. But Ferguson initially did worse than Atkinson. And the scenario this time with Man U, is that it seems to go from bad to worse: all new managers have decent, promosing starts and it all goes downhill from there, so it is something in that club that kicks in after 12-15 months.

This site continues to make it difficult for us to write and post this stuff. First there was the limit of images that you can upload. It seems to be a limit of 500 pages with 4 images on each, so one needs to delete old images, if one has posted this amount over the years.

Then they've made it incredibly time-consuming to delete these images from the "uploaded images" folder. Not to mention how difficult it was to find the folder in the first place.

And now, when I try to delete some more, I'm told the following: 

Sorry, you have to sign in to access this page. If you're already signed in, you may not have access to this page.

Needless to say, I AM signed in. So I apparently don't have access to the images I've once posted in order to delete them in a time-consuming way to create more space. It seems they keep testing our patience, now with one more obstacle in terms of writing and posting career mode stories like this.

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@JustinCase0110 wrote:

This site continues to make it difficult for us to write and post this stuff

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Where do we raise issues about the lay-out and user-friendliness of this website, because as @JustinCase0110 indicates, there's a lot left to be desired - navigation in particular.

• the cross-over log-in issue raised by @JustinCase0110 
• there's no button/scroll back to the top of a page-option
• there's a limit to the amount of images one can upload; it is complicated and user-unfriendly to get rid of older ones (another reason to delete and purge topics that are no longer in use for a matter of months or years, something the mods and admins of this forum constantly refuse)
• there's no option to either close or delete topics (and automatically free up space for new images, by deleting those in closed or deleted topics)
• there's no control on topics being posted in the right threads. Instead, users need to report the topic.
• there's hardly any feedback from mods. I know it's voluntary, I'm aware that in this day and age of internet people tend to be impatient, but leaving someone, a query or some topic hanging for more than 48-72 hours is not really respectful. I do my dishes voluntarily too, if I leave that hanging for 48-72 hrs, I've created a voluntary issue myself.
• the amount of options and time to create a post are limited: the selection of emojis is limited, the lining out of text can be done only via HTML-coding

Things seem to work again now. 

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@JustinCase0110 wrote:

Things seem to work again now. 

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I sometimes run into the same issue when there's a matter of cross-over sessions (logging in on laptop, sometimes simultaneously on phone, or on two or more browsers, creates conflict)

See @JustinCase0110  - Today, I had a case of not being signed in until now...

But, as you can see at the right top..., I actually was...

@Danimal5981 Yes, that was also the case for me. I suppose it just happens sometimes, but goes away again after a period of time as well. So it's perhaps not the biggest deal, but still a bit frustrating, if you have a short window to post something and the site won't allow you to do it. For reasons unknown.

@JustinCase0110 @Danimal5981 

This site is really set up to enable people to report bugs, raise connection and ultimate-type issues such as non-delivery of packages bought.

I don't think it was ever going to work as a fit for the career mode stories and I was wondering when issues such as image quantity limits would be hit.

I can only suggest you go on to the bug reports, find a couple of the EA moderators answering bug reports and then contact them directly with the issues.

However, the chances of anything being done about these issues are pretty remote, I would say.

Happy holidays, my fellow career mode story writers!...

Spend them with however you'd qualify happiness and health, as much as you can.

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@Danimal5981 wrote:

Happy holidays, my fellow career mode story writers!...

Spend them with however you'd qualify happiness and health, as much as you can.

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Merry Christmas to you as well! Or as we say in Denmark: Glædelig jul.

Happy Holidays everyone. Unexpected life changes (and a new unexpected baby) took me away from all video games the last few months. 

How has FC25 career mode been? Has anyone tried the starting from a starting point yet? I’m curious about jumping back in and starting from todays date possibly.