More Gameplay Deep Dives

New Ways to Play with Game Modes

There are now three ways to start a save – ‘Original’, ‘Real World’ and ‘Your World’.

• Original: Players will be at the clubs they play for in the current Football Manager database at the start of your game, reflecting the most accurate real-life data.
• Real World: Players will start the game contracted to the clubs they were with on the real-life date your Career begins. They will then move to their new club on the same date as they did in real life.
• Your World: Club squads and budgets will be set at the date your game starts, and only players who joined before that date will be at your club - with all future transfers (for Real World mode) cancelled, giving you the opportunity to change history.

When choosing the team you want to manage, the option to ‘Choose a Game Mode’ will appear, taking you to a section with three options.

At this stage, you then have the option to selected ‘Advanced Setup’ or ‘Quick Start’.

Note - if playing in the MLS or A-League and choose Real Life Transfers mode, no further transfers can be made for the first season in-game.

These new modes open up huge possibilities for you in FM24. You can play how you've always done, get a different challenge with Real World where players could join after the first fixtures of the season without drilled-in fitness levels and tactical knowledge, or you can experience a more fantasy way of playing with Your World – this gives you different transfer budgets and the ability to make alternative choices to the decisions of real-life clubs.

And at least you've got a few weeks ahead of the official launch on November 6th, or Early Access if you're pre-purchased from participating digital retailers, to think about which one you will choose...

A Refreshed National Pool

Another new feature revealed in the features wrap-up video was some changes to the National Pool, for those who like international management.

To help you get a better overview of the talent at your disposal as the manager of a national side, there has been a bunch of changes to the National Pool.

The first of these is List View, which is similar to what you've seen previously but with some nice tweaks to elevate it further.

These improvements include being able to change the tactic used to help show the players’ suitability to your system – this now displays on the positional view while a position is selected.

Also, a Squad Overview pop-up brings up your current squad, where you are now able to filter by position. This will also show advice from your assistant on where the squad could be changed, along with the squad rules for upcoming fixtures.

In the main table, there is now the addition of potential ability, tactical suitability, staff advice and an interaction option based on their feedback. This advice is given per tactic, so your backroom staff may recommend different choices depending on your tactic which you can change in the dropdown menu in the top right of the screen.

Then, there's Position View. Here, the pitch will appear on the left-hand side of your screen with a condensed table on the right.

When a position is selected, only suitable players are displayed and will be ordered by current ability. Along with this is a ‘Similar To’ list underneath the pitch, which allows you to filter by players in that position who are currently selected in your squad.

If your squad is missing players in a particular position, you will be notified via a red icon which displays that no suitable player is available in your squad selection.

If you select a player in your ‘All Players’ list, you now have the option to compare them against another candidate in your ‘Similar To’ column by selecting a player from that list.

Squad Planner Part 2

Squad Planner was a feature that we introduced in FM23 and was certainly one that split the audience - some people loved it and have commented that they don't know how they played the previous game without it, whereas for some it didn't add to the experience.

Whilst we were pretty happy with it, we were always planning to add more in the future, and maybe some of these things we should have added from the start - but hindsight makes that easy to say now.

So, what have we changed?

For a start, there are new icons on the pitch which signal whether your attention is required, linked to squad depth - and a separate tab that will show warnings based on squad ability to really help you work out where both your strengths and weaknesses lie now, and in future seasons.

It's also now a lot easier to see if a player is first choice in a different position to the one you are looking at. A new icon will appear next to a player’s name if they are first choice in another position, to help you better understand the balance of your squad from one area of the pitch to another.

A new column shows the position map for each player, and gives you a better overview of where they may be best suited in your tactical setup.

Position analysis will also now appear at the bottom of your screen and will display three pieces of information:

• Position Depth (staff can suggest adding a removed player back in or to create a new focus)
• Player Ability
• Shortlisted players or youth players

When a player row is selected, the analysis section will change to show:

• The player’s best suited role
• Their ability in the current role selected
• Their contract information

We hope that these changes please those who already loved the feature, and bring some of you who didn't like it fully on board - as it's a much more powerful tool now, and a lot easier to use.

Now here's something that wasn't mentioned in the features round-up video, although it is related to both of the last two announcements…

National Team Squad Planner

New for FM24, international managers will now be able to plan their squads effectively for those all-important tournaments with the new National Team Squad Planner.

Much like the Squad Planner for your club, you can assess the tactical suitability and role ability of your international players, and make informed decisions regarding key squad selections across the pitch.

When selecting a position, in the analysis section you will be able to add players from your National Pool, too, if you’re keen to bolster your squad a bit more. You’ll see the player’s name, age, their club, role ability and potential, to give you the best insight.

When a row is selected, the displayed player information should show their ability, best-suited role, and relevant international stats.

There can also be times where tournaments overlap with each other, so you’ll also have the option to toggle your Squad Planner by calendar year to ensure all your current and future plans are in place.

More information on Negative Transfer Budgets

And finally, for today's announcements, I wanted to go a little bit deeper on one of the big finance changes in-game - negative transfer budgets.

We've spoken about you overspending, but I wanted to clarify that this doesn't mean that all of a sudden you can spend what you want in-game. You still have a transfer budget, after all. It's the board who decide whether you've overspent or not across a season, based on their priorities, and obviously those priorities can change during a season - both positively and negatively.

So, you might take over a team at the start of the game (or when moving to another team) with a negative transfer budget. You may have your budget cut during the season based on a bunch of different factors including FFP and league position and find yourself needing to sell a player. The board's plans may also change from one season to the next.

And, of course, any of those factors could increase your transfer budget too - overperform and chase a UEFA Champions League spot, and maybe your board will give you more money to spend in the mid-season transfer window.

So, thanks for reading. We have two more blogs to come which will deal more with what we call Quality of Life features. Some big, some small, but all things that will improve your game experience and help make the game more accurate to the real world of football.

Cheers,

Miles