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IAG likes / dislikes
One thing I like to see:

- a youth player improving on his first day in the academy.

One thing that bugs me:

- Dropping points twice in a season to a team that played with three at the back and wing-backs set to Always. It just doesn't make sense


What's your one like and one dislike about this game?

Dislikes:

- The lack of managers
- The lack of bids on a player you are trying to sell
- Tax at 40% where only the rich get richer. It would be good if a bottom league club could do a Chelsea and amortise the books

Come on, let's have a positive too

Do you really think that only the rich get richer? It's the same for everyone, isn't it? I think it's more about length of time at a club and how well you manage your finances.

Likes:

1. The banter on the forums (well, most of it).
2. The random element built into all games, so that there's always a chance of an upset.
3. That there's a game on most days
4. Friendly competitions, such as those dreamt up by johnmufta.

Dislikes:

1. Managers who try to cheat.
2. The imperfect taxation. I'd like to see a more graduated tax system, perhaps like the UK had in the time of the Beatles.

Like: 08:03pm update time, still get a buzz

Dislike: The transfer system, 5 days that?s it, no altering price if struggling to sell, no making offers for players outside the system etc could be soo much better

I like that there are many little ways to gain a small advantage over your rivals who may not be as aware of them, especially if they don't read the forums. With enough knowledge you can build these small advantages to really make a big step forward with your club, something that wasn't as easy in the previous versions of the game.


Do you know, I actually find that this is one of my dislikes. There's no way a team should be able to go 38 wins in a season, no matter how superior they are to the teams they're playing. Especially in the top divisions, which are often won with 100 points or more, which is incredibly rare in real football. If anything, there should be more chance of a random upset, and there should also be more 0-0s and 1-0s instead of every close match ending 2-1 without exception. I wish that unbeaten seasons were to be celebrated, not ignored as commonplace.

Don't moan just because you can't handle overlapping centre backs

On the topic of youth players, I like it when a youth who's done nothing for seasons suddenly explodes when he reaches 17, like Sharaf who was rated under 40

As for dislikes - when it seems like the match engine is determined for you not to win...watching it go 0-1, 1-1, 1-2, 2-2, and just knowing there will be a last minute winner for the other team.

You rather contradict yourself, FS - you appear to dislike the random element, but simply want even more of it!

Dislike.
Oversub attendance by 4000, club rating goes up, next opponent has higher rating, increase TP by 1, less than 90% attendance.

I love this game...

I like having a game scheduled every day (mostly) and only needing to spend about 10 mins a day to keep your team ticking over.

I don't like the of number of vacant managers

One slight dislike is other managers lunacys I.E purposefully relegating yourself for a slight temporary advantage over others which isn't really needed and also certain club hoppers who are changing the names of the clubs to a slight variation of the same thing I.E corsham and lancashire because soon enough we will all be playing one of them every other week

I like the turn based aspect of the game and it sorta reminds me of the old "play by mail" manager games before the internet was mainstream

Another slight dislike is the "All time records" not showing I've won a (at the time) a very competitive silver and gold inter cup, where I wasn't the favourite on paper but managed to scrape some good victorys

This probably already is the best web server manager game but with a few brushes around the edges and plaistering over a few cracks and little alterations it certainly would be the best online manager game, without a doubt

Well of course we all get a bit grouchy when the random element goes against us, but that's just because it's such a rare occurrence that we currently never expect it to turn up. When you already know the results of about 60-80% of your matches before they've even started, it takes some of the jeopardy and excitement away.

I've played in Brazil's Serie A for over 10 seasons now and have a pretty decent team, but not once have we beaten Insmouth Cheetahs. Can you imagine any other league where a consistently upper-mid table team has never beaten another team in over 20 attempts? Can you think of one in real life?

The fact that this is my biggest gripe should tell you that I'm actually quite happy with the game as it is. There are many small improvements that could be made, but mostly quality of life ones. The core game is good.

Dislike: Teams in capital letters
Dislike : Team squad numbers with a keeper as no.8!

Likes: Occasionally taking a point or two away from a bigger/better team
Likes: Current youth set up

Thumbs up.

*looks guiltily at my fourth choice goalkeeper* ...he'll get a new number for season 64, I swear!

I think part of this is the perennial problem of lack of managers, the knock-on effect of which is a huge sea of low-quality unmanaged teams. Excluding the top divisions every league is more or less the same and you can win any of them with a ~65-rated squad which will get you hammered in the top divisions.

To my mind, if the game was almost full you'd have the lowest ranked teams in the top divisions being around 75 rating, then 70-80 for Div2, 65-75 for Div 3, etc. If every team in the top division was 75+ then there would be a much greater chance of the top teams dropping points, and of course if the lower divisions were fuller then it wouldn't be a walk in the park for the two or three managers who are currently there.

It would also be less disheartening for managers if they had to get a competitive team before they made it to the top division; again, you can breeze through the bottom four divisions with a team that might not crack double figures at the top.

I think another thing that contributes to it is the abundance of top players which leads to every top 10 team having a squad of almost Invincibles. Just look at the Football Manager squads for Man City, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich - only two or three players with a 90+ rating.

Of course people want to achieve the 'maximum' squad rating and with a powerful few paying huge sums for any top talent the best players will all congregate at the top. But it would be quite exciting to have the very rare generational talent who can be a game changer even against a 90+ team.

All this would need a lot of background work though...it looks like I've moaned a lot but I enjoy the challenge of building my teams almost irrespective of the match results.

Well the field has narrowed with the youth system changes, and I can now field a team with a preview score only 7 points behind Insmouth's... and yet I still cannot win a match against them for the life of me! 7 points preview difference should at least give you a chance of a win, right? Maybe I'm getting my tactics wrong against them or maybe I'm just unlucky, but I think there should be a chance to overcome a preview difference of 10-15 points if you get everything right. As it is, you can almost guarantee that a preview advantage of 10 points is going to give you the win the vast majority of the time. That's too narrow a band of competitiveness, in my opinion. Stretch the chance for an "upset" to 15-20 preview points, and you'll see fewer top divisions won with a total of 100 points and unbeaten records, I think.

Not offhand, I couldn't, but I wouldn't be surprised if there were a good many. How far down a table of twenty clubs would you define as upper-mid?