True Football Manager

The last patch (numbered 10.3) for Football Manager 2010 was released one week ago - http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php?t=192934

Usually they say that Football Manager gets the best quality after the last patch. I agree with the opinion, of course. So now it’s happened. Many different bugs were fixed. And today I would like to single out the most noticeable changes done by FM 2010 Patch 10.3. Some of them are commented by me below using bold font.

Match Engine Changes

I am pretty sure that match engine changes are the most important for the game. If Football Manager had no real looking match engine we wouldn’t love this game so much.

So the biggest match engine changes are:

- Fixed keepers having unrealistic reach at point blank range
- Reduced likelihood of lone striker in AI team being used as Trequartista
- Fixed players being delayed unrealistically after someone attempts a step tackle on them - Stupid looking bug. It was damaging football realism in 3D pitch view.
- Increased negative effect of lots of new players at once playing in a team – If I continue to follow my Leeds transfer strategy of the last seasons buying and using many new players, I will have even more problems now.
- Made ball player less likely to dribble when faced with opponent and near own d-line
- Made keepers try to anticipate penalty direction better – Fine new feature!
- Further improved decision making of player when clear on goal – Rarely I had bizarre goals due to this problem.
- Fixed player set to "challenge keeper" at corners actively looking to move away and towards ball instead – Great!
- Sanity check on unrealistically hard kicks e.g. shots from very long distance
- Fixed bug where team doesn’t give ball back to opponents who kicked it out due to an injury – Yes, that is problem that have been happening pretty often.
- Fixed bug where defender can be marking player and then switches off as pass made to that player before resuming marking him
- Improved choice of run with ball direction when on wing according to instruction and/or strongest foot
- Reduced number of risky low benefit passes – Hope the amount of stupid mistakes by defenders will be decreased after this change.
- Fixed bug causing central defenders to cover full back positions prematurely
- Fixed tall players marking opponents outside of own area when defending a corner – It was really strange to see Hangeland (the best in air in my Leeds) marking tall player outside of own area.
- Reduced instances of bizarre "Mr Fifty Pence-Head" headers in own area
- Got AI to use "Hassle Opponents" shout when they want to stop defensive minded opposition knocking ball around the back – It should increase game difficulty.
- Implemented better zonal marking at corners and free kicks near corner to try to reduce exploits
- Fine tuned ratings by position
- Fixed corner exploit that utilised two players lurking outside area – I didn’t know about that hack.

Interface

- When managing both a nation and a club the shortlist shortcut will now take you to the personal shortlist and not the national pool.
- Fixed bug that allowed user to alter buy back fee on a non-negotiable offer – Definitely the bug.

Crash Fix

- Fixed crash when clicking on the backroom advice button.

General

- Adjusted newgen attribute creation and development
- Adjusted attribute progression
- Improved international squad selections.

News

- Fixed instances of two goals being reported as a hat-trick in match report -
- Player no longer gets upset about missing an important game if they are ineligible to play in that competition.

Backroom Advice

- Staff no long recommend players/staff signings that they would not have knowledge of.
- Increased the amount of scouting suggestions advice – Nice change.
- Stopped staff repeatedly recommending the same staff additions in each meeting – Yes! I got tired a bit of the same staff advices.

Transfers

- Tightened up decision making on foreign transfers for clubs that have to abide by foreign player restrictions.
- Removed Basque transfer restrictions for all Basque clubs except for Bilbao and its sub teams – Poor Athletic Bilbao. They are along now in their idea
- Added a 'Monitoring' section to the players profile to help distinguish what clubs are seriously interested in a player or just have a passing interest.

P.S. Next post will be regarding Leeds United story.