There are a lot of topics here, but I think managing newgens is the main focus to me. Do you have any deep-dive posts or research on newgens that I could read in the thread?
As I see it, there are two main development paths for promising newgens i use to follow:
Keep them in the first team: Use them as backups immediately. This gives you control over their setup, but you risk limiting their development if they don't get enough match context.
Send them out on loan: This gets them minutes, but you run the risk that the loan club won't play them enough or train them properly.
In rarest occassion, I've used the rest exploit combined with quickness individual training on youths while letting the U18 manager handle match time, and their attributes grew quickly. I read somewhere that a youth player's attributes can only grow by a maximum of 25 points per season, but when tracking some of my own wonderkids, I noticed their total attribute growth actually exceeded 25 points. It's not a single case, for a 10 season-long save i got like 4-5 players that became monsters in 2 season, even got first-team GK from youth team at age of 16 and at 18 i sold him to Chelsea.
I won't comment on your manifesto—I really don't care about the nonsense. I shared my opinion, you shared yours, and that's it. I'm here for the game, so I'll stop the debate here. Tell me, what is the most optimal way of playing FM26? Let's discuss the actual game. Some people test C++ code and get results, others build tools like FM Super Scout, and you do research—everyone has their results. After 21 pages, I assume you've found the proper way FM26 should actually be played? (It's not irony, I'm not being rude, not trying to ruin the thread)
I’ve actually read through all 20 pages of this thread. Giving advice on how to tweak FM26 files when you explicitly admit you don't even play or test the game makes zero sense. I wouldn't lecture someone on FC 26 based on secondhand findings from someone else. If you don't like FM26, just ignore it and let people who actively play and put thousands of hours into testing the current engine give proper feedback — like HarvestGreen does.
I respect FM-Arena's data and the massive effort behind automated holiday simulations in custom leagues. They offer a solid general direction, but they don't replace hands-on match-day management. I’ve signed plenty of players with "what used to be the best" ratings from custom GS files who completely flopped during an actual save — even while running an 84+ rated FM-Arena tactic. I had a similar experience with a high-physical striker generated thru FMSS in a top-rated tactic who scored 3 goals in 25 games.
Every FM engine has its ups and downs, but systems evolve. SI has to try new mechanics for the game to move forward, even if people like you dismiss it as "garbage."
And as for your "undeniable superiority" and "dominating the field" — you admitted yourself in Post #21 that you took HarvestGreen's data, fed it into ChatGPT, and had AI output an "approximation" of attribute distributions. Taking other people's hard work, running it through an AI engine and exporting a custom GS file for a game you don't even play isn't "dominating" anything. It's just prompt engineering. One day I'll just set an AI to play the game for me, drink a beer, and lecture everyone on how to play based on what the algorithm outputs — I'll be sure to tag you for the discussion!
People visit forums for different reasons, and if I want to learn on Reddit or SI Forums, I will. I'd rather learn from people doing actual ground-level testing than read AI-generated exports from someone who doesn't even play the game.
At the end of the day, how anyone chooses to run their save is entirely up to them. Cheers!
You literally said yourself in previous posts that FM26 is "hot garbage" and that you don't even play it. I'll just leave that there so anyone reading this can decide for themselves how much weight to give your advice.
I agree with @CBP87 here. At the end of the day, everyone is free to play and test whatever they enjoy!
Strikerless setups happen to be what the match engine currently favors for top scores, but the testing table already provides great filters and tabs for unique formations and realistic setups. It all comes down to personal preference. If strikerless tactics get nerfed in FM27, people will just start looking for them again and wonder why a standard 4-4-2 (for example if it is the meta eventually) is suddenly dominating the top of the table.
And one more thing: if there's already a well-known attribute table showing how the match engine weighs everything, and the engine hasn't even changed, why are we even having this discussion?
If you're going to run thousands of tests anyway, at least BE CREATIVE—go build the ultimate broken tactic to crush the match engine instead of running endless simulations just to prove everyone else is playing wrong.
I came here hoping to actually learn something useful, but watching someone obsessively test a "garbage game" they claim not to play is certainly a choice. Sure, the devs make mistakes, but at least their bugs can be patched. Whatever logic you're using here can't be fixed.
I was trying to be friendly and share a genuine player's perspective, but I won't waste another minute in this thread. I'm off to read something actually worth my time.
A few quick points because you're completely contradicting yourself here:
FM26 & OOP Roles: You explicitly stated "I don't test FM26" and "I don't play FM26 because it's hot garbage." Calling the in-possession and out-of-possession mechanics "placebo" based on FM24 assumptions and second-hand opinions isn't data—it's guesswork. In FM26, if a player lacks positional discipline during phase transitions, they break the team's defensive structure, regardless of speed.
"Roles Don't Exist": Claiming roles don't exist in FM ignores how the match engine assigns spatial duties, pressing triggers and movement patterns. Attributes are processed through those role instructions—they don't operate in a vacuum.
Off the Ball & CA Exploits: Calling Off the Ball "completely useless" and boasting about winning the Premier League with a 1 CA / 90 CA team proves @keithb's point: your setup is exploiting match engine pathfinding via broken tactics. When a tactic does 95% of the heavy lifting, claiming your changing attribute weights caused the win is pure confirmation bias.
Templates & Balance: My point about CA balance still stands. My striker had 13–14 Pace/Acc and dominated in Europe because his high Mentals fit my tactic. Swapping him for a 19–20 Pace player with lower Off the Ball/Composure dropped performance—because raw physicals without tactical fit don't magically win matches in dynamic play.
Honestly, I came here hoping to learn something, but reading through all of this has completely killed my desire to stay in this thread or engage with the forum. It's exhausting trying to discuss normal, proper gameplay when someone running 50,000 automated holiday sims insists you're playing the wrong way unless you intentionally break the match engine.
Testing players inside plug-and-play tactics proves the tactic is OP, not that attributes work like a magical spreadsheet. High Pace looks great on paper, but role fit, mental attributes, and relative league quality matter far more in practice.
Case in point: I used a striker with just 13–14 Pace/Acc in the Bulgarian league (where average CA starts around 95 and below). He scored 50+ goals a season, won 2 Ballon d'Ors, and helped me reach the Champions League every year—even winning it once. I eventually followed the popular advice to replace him with a 19–20 Pace/Acceleration player, and the speed replacement performed far worse overall simply because he didn't fit my tactic or have the same high Off the Ball and Composure.
With FM26 introducing distinct in-possession and out-of-possession roles, the devs clearly made squad and tactical fit far more critical than just hoarding fast players to break the engine. It's about how a player fits your system across both phases, not how high their physical stats can grow.
To be fair, you (George) are doing some great testing, and the results do show useful directions for squad improvement. Having a table that ranks attributes can definitely help players know what to prioritize. But I still don't believe that just stacking 5 attributes at 18–20 makes a player great. CA is capped at 200, so a player can't have half their stats maxed out and expect to be a complete monster without balance.
When i'm testing different tactics in a controlled testing league where every player had flat 13–14 stats, certain tactics still performed very well. Even when precision is minimized down to 1–1.5%, you can never fully eliminate RNG. Focusing strictly on raw physical players just isn't the right way to look at the game.
As I see it, there are two main development paths for promising newgens i use to follow:
Keep them in the first team: Use them as backups immediately. This gives you control over their setup, but you risk limiting their development if they don't get enough match context.
Send them out on loan: This gets them minutes, but you run the risk that the loan club won't play them enough or train them properly.
In rarest occassion, I've used the rest exploit combined with quickness individual training on youths while letting the U18 manager handle match time, and their attributes grew quickly. I read somewhere that a youth player's attributes can only grow by a maximum of 25 points per season, but when tracking some of my own wonderkids, I noticed their total attribute growth actually exceeded 25 points. It's not a single case, for a 10 season-long save i got like 4-5 players that became monsters in 2 season, even got first-team GK from youth team at age of 16 and at 18 i sold him to Chelsea.
Tell me, what is the most optimal way of playing FM26? Let's discuss the actual game. Some people test C++ code and get results, others build tools like FM Super Scout, and you do research—everyone has their results. After 21 pages, I assume you've found the proper way FM26 should actually be played? (It's not irony, I'm not being rude, not trying to ruin the thread)
I respect FM-Arena's data and the massive effort behind automated holiday simulations in custom leagues. They offer a solid general direction, but they don't replace hands-on match-day management. I’ve signed plenty of players with "what used to be the best" ratings from custom GS files who completely flopped during an actual save — even while running an 84+ rated FM-Arena tactic. I had a similar experience with a high-physical striker generated thru FMSS in a top-rated tactic who scored 3 goals in 25 games.
Every FM engine has its ups and downs, but systems evolve. SI has to try new mechanics for the game to move forward, even if people like you dismiss it as "garbage."
And as for your "undeniable superiority" and "dominating the field" — you admitted yourself in Post #21 that you took HarvestGreen's data, fed it into ChatGPT, and had AI output an "approximation" of attribute distributions. Taking other people's hard work, running it through an AI engine and exporting a custom GS file for a game you don't even play isn't "dominating" anything. It's just prompt engineering. One day I'll just set an AI to play the game for me, drink a beer, and lecture everyone on how to play based on what the algorithm outputs — I'll be sure to tag you for the discussion!
People visit forums for different reasons, and if I want to learn on Reddit or SI Forums, I will. I'd rather learn from people doing actual ground-level testing than read AI-generated exports from someone who doesn't even play the game.
At the end of the day, how anyone chooses to run their save is entirely up to them. Cheers!
Strikerless setups happen to be what the match engine currently favors for top scores, but the testing table already provides great filters and tabs for unique formations and realistic setups. It all comes down to personal preference. If strikerless tactics get nerfed in FM27, people will just start looking for them again and wonder why a standard 4-4-2 (for example if it is the meta eventually) is suddenly dominating the top of the table.
If you're going to run thousands of tests anyway, at least BE CREATIVE—go build the ultimate broken tactic to crush the match engine instead of running endless simulations just to prove everyone else is playing wrong.
I came here hoping to actually learn something useful, but watching someone obsessively test a "garbage game" they claim not to play is certainly a choice. Sure, the devs make mistakes, but at least their bugs can be patched. Whatever logic you're using here can't be fixed.
I was trying to be friendly and share a genuine player's perspective, but I won't waste another minute in this thread. I'm off to read something actually worth my time.
A few quick points because you're completely contradicting yourself here:
FM26 & OOP Roles: You explicitly stated "I don't test FM26" and "I don't play FM26 because it's hot garbage." Calling the in-possession and out-of-possession mechanics "placebo" based on FM24 assumptions and second-hand opinions isn't data—it's guesswork. In FM26, if a player lacks positional discipline during phase transitions, they break the team's defensive structure, regardless of speed.
"Roles Don't Exist": Claiming roles don't exist in FM ignores how the match engine assigns spatial duties, pressing triggers and movement patterns. Attributes are processed through those role instructions—they don't operate in a vacuum.
Off the Ball & CA Exploits: Calling Off the Ball "completely useless" and boasting about winning the Premier League with a 1 CA / 90 CA team proves @keithb's point: your setup is exploiting match engine pathfinding via broken tactics. When a tactic does 95% of the heavy lifting, claiming your changing attribute weights caused the win is pure confirmation bias.
Templates & Balance: My point about CA balance still stands. My striker had 13–14 Pace/Acc and dominated in Europe because his high Mentals fit my tactic. Swapping him for a 19–20 Pace player with lower Off the Ball/Composure dropped performance—because raw physicals without tactical fit don't magically win matches in dynamic play.
Honestly, I came here hoping to learn something, but reading through all of this has completely killed my desire to stay in this thread or engage with the forum. It's exhausting trying to discuss normal, proper gameplay when someone running 50,000 automated holiday sims insists you're playing the wrong way unless you intentionally break the match engine.
Testing players inside plug-and-play tactics proves the tactic is OP, not that attributes work like a magical spreadsheet. High Pace looks great on paper, but role fit, mental attributes, and relative league quality matter far more in practice.
Case in point: I used a striker with just 13–14 Pace/Acc in the Bulgarian league (where average CA starts around 95 and below). He scored 50+ goals a season, won 2 Ballon d'Ors, and helped me reach the Champions League every year—even winning it once. I eventually followed the popular advice to replace him with a 19–20 Pace/Acceleration player, and the speed replacement performed far worse overall simply because he didn't fit my tactic or have the same high Off the Ball and Composure.
With FM26 introducing distinct in-possession and out-of-possession roles, the devs clearly made squad and tactical fit far more critical than just hoarding fast players to break the engine. It's about how a player fits your system across both phases, not how high their physical stats can grow.
To be fair, you (George) are doing some great testing, and the results do show useful directions for squad improvement. Having a table that ranks attributes can definitely help players know what to prioritize. But I still don't believe that just stacking 5 attributes at 18–20 makes a player great. CA is capped at 200, so a player can't have half their stats maxed out and expect to be a complete monster without balance.
When i'm testing different tactics in a controlled testing league where every player had flat 13–14 stats, certain tactics still performed very well. Even when precision is minimized down to 1–1.5%, you can never fully eliminate RNG. Focusing strictly on raw physical players just isn't the right way to look at the game.