eh, people have been complaining that there's only been minor updates year on year. they finally make a big change in the engine and people are now complaining even more.
it's fairly obvious that this change was going to take a lot more time and effort to get right, hence the need to strip back on some aspects of the game that arguably aren't particularly necessary. if it means laying the groundwork for what will be a better version of the game than the previous engine in the years to come, then ultimately it's all worth it. i imagine with the international game, they'll bring it back once it's actually improved enough that people actually want to play it (let's be honest it's rubbish in the current version of the game)
They literally sold FM 24 as "we've not really done much here because all the big excellent changes are coming to the next one."
Since then, all they've really announced for FM 25 is that it now looks like you're playing on a phone, you can't do mid-match "shouts" and you can't manage international teams.
Of course people are complaining. They didn't discount FM 24, despite pretty much admitting it was a reskin of FM 23, and after using FM 25 as the excuse for not doing much to FM 24, they're now effectively announcing that the next couple of months are going to be spent getting the game into a playable state.
It sounds like they need the extra time to get the whole game in a playable state. Which is bonkers three months from release. They should be firmly in bugfixing and goldplating territory now.
Also the gender thing is surely just a new field in a player object (they've already added it for staff in the past). It really shouldn't be hard to do unless their existing code is awful (which I won't rule out).
You'd think the gender thing would be simple, but I can remember playing the beta for FM 22 and they'd managed to break substitutions. I've just checked my SI forums account, and it was this:
- I selected Sancho to be subbed off for Elanga. Before the sub could happen, Shaw was sent off, which forced the tactics screen up and had undone the Sancho/Elanga substituion.
- I tried to sub Ronaldo off for Dalot, and move Dalot to left-back.
- The changes were confirmed, and the tactics screen and in-game bench UI showed Ronaldo off for Dalot, except Ronaldo was playing left-back and no one was up front.
- I tried to repeat the change, except it was now showing me as bringing on two players, both of which were Diogo Dalot.
- I made another change later on, and once again it showed Dalot alongside the player actually being brought on.
- This counted as me making five substitutions, despite only managing to make two.
Turns out I'd also reported an issue with scout reports, and this wasn't fixed until after release. The issue there was the initial scout rating remaining on the "overview" page, even after further scouting had changed it.
If they can break aspects of the game/UI that were fine and not remotely new features, they can definitely feck up adding an entirely new set of players, teams and competitions to run in parallel with the existing database.
As I said, I'm speculating on what the issue is, but it seems obvious that they've fundamentally broken international management, and the biggest new "feature" is women's football. It's also clear that they haven't got the time to fix it while they try and sort out the myriad of other issues they seem to be having. It's not looking good.
