Should the SSL use FM Tweak?

[scoous]

Hello everyone, i am writing this article to show what FM Tweak is, why i believe that the SSL should start using FM Tweak, and to maybe get more people behind this idea, as i believe it would be very good for both the leagues viewing experience and to increase the variety of tactics we can see in the league. If you read through this and agree with what article is about, please message a BoD to increase the odds that we can, at the very least, get the league to test FM Tweak out.

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What is FM Tweak?

Simply, FM tweak is a mod for football manager that changes the match engine. The match engine is what controls what the players, ball, physics and many other things do, and what FM Tweak does is change the match engine via its code to allow for the game to look overall more realistic. In turn, this also allows for a wider variety of tactics to become viable. No more 4231 gegenpress, with FM tweak, almost any tactic is a viable one, as long as you have the players for it. FM tweak doesn't try to reinvent football manager or change it to a completely unrecognizable game, it simply fine tunes it, allowing for a more immersive, enjoyable and fun game to both watch and play.

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So why should we use it?

There are many reasons as to why we should start using FM Tweak, however, there are three main reasons i believe are the most important not just for the game, but also for the SSL.


Enhanced Viewing Experience

FM tweak allows for a more realistic look to Football Manager, not via graphics, but through the movement of both the ball and the player. Players move like how they would in real life, if they shoot with power, they move their leg high to do so. If they are dribbling through opponents, they will move their body to get around them instead of going through them. Defenders will get into a defensive position and actually tackle their opponent instead of just standing there while a player shoots from inside the box with no opposition. The balls movements are also drastically changed, the ball bounces more realistically, the passing is a slower but in a way that doesn't ruin the flow of the game while also making it look like real life, making it looks less like a game of ping pong, over the top balls and crosses don't seem 'floaty'. Overall, the game is a much more enjoyable to watch when it simulates football in a way that looks realistic, which FM Tweak does to a tee.


Wider Tactic Variety

Fm Tweak does not only just change how the game looks, but also how the game plays out. FM Tweak does this by altering the attributes, player position and the tactics inside of FM. This has the effect of changing how tactics play out, and allows for tactics that are usually more useless when compared to meta tactics, such as defensive tactics, to actually become usable without ruining other said tactics. This would mean two things. First, it means that all the managers in the league will have to learn the new match engine, which can lead to many new tactics we've never seen being used before and increase how exciting the league is as they come up with more and more tactics. Second, it will make the league more dependent on tactics, while also not making players completely obsolete. It is a nice mix of tactical knowledge and the players the teams have that can allow for a team to win, while also allowing for more creativeness from the managers.



Keeping The Game Fresh

Lets be honest, almost all of us have played football manager for an ungodly amount of time, and after a while, the match engine becomes predictable. You'll sometimes know what'll happen in a highlight before the ball is even kicked, like when your goalkeeper hoofs it to the halfway line on a goal kick (even when you made it very apparent to PLAY IT SHORT) or when you see a free kick at just the right angle, you know its going in. FM Tweak changes this. When i started using it back in February, i saw my players doing things i had never seen in my 3 years of playing Football Manager. Passes that mimic real life, dribbles that actually make sense with how the players body moves, so many little things that your players do have been changed in just the right way and just the right amount. 

More Minor Reasons

Paccel - A common complaint about Football Manager is its players reliance on both Pace and Acceleration. FM Tweak lowers how overpowered these two attribute are, which can allow for players in the league to put their TPE into different attributes without the fear of their player falling behind.

Fewer higher scorelines - While it is amazing to see games that end with 5+ or 6+ goals, it isn't overly realistic and also numbs the feeling of having these higher scorelines. FM Tweak changes this entirely, higher scorelines are harder to come across, while also not making them impossible to come by. This'll make those times where these high scoring games come around more special and exciting.

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Problems with FM Tweak

Of course with something as big as FM Tweak, there are a few problems that may arise. While i can only think of a select few, please feel free to include any others below that i may have not thought of.


Too Realistic?

FM Tweaks main reason for existing is making FM as immersive and as realistic as possible. However, while i personally don't hold this opinion, i could see why some people wouldn't want this. Perhaps they like FM for how it already looks or don't want the SSL to become 'too realistic'. I believe this a fair argument, as some people would have become used to how Football Manager looks and don't want to change it. 

Limited Testing

As far as i am aware, FM Tweak has never been used in a league such as the SSL. This means we do not have much knowledge on the outcomes of using it, and unexpected problems may be ran into while it is in the process of being tested. While this is a valid reason for not wanting to use FM Tweak, i believe this drawback is heavily outweighed by how much better the league will become because of it, and there are many ways we can test FM Tweak without ruining a season. Perhaps we could get a team of people to test it out completely separately, we could use the pre-season to see the effects it has on the league, or (my personal favorite), use it in the academy for a season or two before bringing to the bigger leagues. 


Too much pressure on simmers

This is a common complaint i have heard from a few people. FM Tweak adds another element to the already tight simming schedule, and some people believe this would be pushing it beyond the boundaries of whats possible with the current team. However, i believe this not too be true. While I understand that from an outside perspective of people who haven't used FM Tweak that it may look like a big task to put into their game, the wonderful developers of FM Tweak have made it as easy as possible to swap to and from match engines as you want.

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So how hard is it to download FM Tweak?

There are two ways to install FM Tweak, the simple way, and the simpler way. I will detail both ways to do it below, and will hopefully show how easy it truly is to install this not just to the game, but to perhaps your own game to try it yourself.


Simple Way
1. Go to the FM Tweak Website and click 'GET LATEST MATCH ENGINE'


2. Scroll down and click the orange 'DOWNLOAD' button


3. Find your Football Manager folder (Program Files (x86) > Steam > steamapps> common > Football Manager 2024 > Data) and export the file


Done 

However, there are problems to this method. First of, some files may be in different places for different people, making it difficult to find exactly where you are going. Second, doing this method will get rid of you original match engine unless you've saved it elsewhere. This is not the method i personally recommend, as it is more confusing and long winded.

Simpler Way

1. Go to the FM Tweak Website and click 'GET LATEST MATCH ENGINE'


2. Scroll down until you see ' MATCH ENGINE MANAGER', click 'DOWNLOAD NOW'


3. Extract the folder and click 'Setup.exe', you should get to a screen that looks like this.


4. Insert all the valid info, and click add match engine, clicking on the match engine you previously installed


5. Click 'Swap Match Engine' and you are finished!


While this method has more steps, it makes it much easier to swap to and from whatever match engine you would like, and the clean UI makes it easy to figure out where to go on your own. Now that I have shown how easy it is to install and set up FM Tweak, i hope more that more people will be on board with the idea of bringing it into our league

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Final thoughts

In as simple words as i can put it without leaving out any great detail, FM Tweak would be an excellent thing to bring to the league as it will enhance the viewing experience, the variety of tactics and attributes and overall make the league more interesting and exciting. 

So there it is. I have laid all my reasoning's for why i hope that FM Tweak will have in introductory into the SSL. If you need more convincing or just want to see it for yourself, please check out either 'Zealands' or 'Old Man Phil' on Youtube, as i believe they do the best at showing off what FM Tweak can do to the game (or check it out for yourself). Once again, please consider speaking to a BoD if this idea interests you, as the more people we get talking about it, the higher chance we have of it coming into fruition. I appreciate if you have read this far, as this has taken a long time to write compared to my others articles, but i feel like it was needed as FM Tweak has changed how i feel about Football Manager, and i believe that if we can eventually bring it to the league, it may even change yours too.

[TooDear]

I think using FM tweak would be a good idea because the SSL won't instantly switch over to FM26 when(if) it comes out. Personally I think it should first be put in for the Academy. To observe the differences and see the issues that might come with simming. If it passes the Academy test, then I think we should push to use it for the SSL.

[FuriousChicken]

Just want to add a bit on this for some pro and cons about this whole FM Tweaks (maybe nice to also move this to the discord, as in my opinion it is easier to have a discussion about these kind of things on there).

Personally I do believe the simmers needing to have it installed is still a con, especially in the aspect of what happens if a simmer forgets to turn it on (or has a different version of the sim engine).

2nd point I do see is also that the testing and more strength coming from the tactics might be a bad thing, as in my opinion/vision the SSL is a players first league, where there are also quote some people who don't really have too much experience with FM (although this has been shifting with the recent draft classes).

3rd point for me would be that it does indeed look nicer in some ways, I would like to have someone be able to test it a bit more (I know for example that the extreme changes one I think in the Zealand video had the tendency to put the game into uncontinueable states, which is something that might take a lot of time for simmers, although no clue if this is also a issue that sometimes occurs in the normal versions).

4th point would be what version, as from what I gathered (not been that into the match engine changes), you got the chinese/korean versions, the fusion of those 2, the FMTweaks version (which I think got 3 different versions (not including the super extreme one), although 1 is arcady?). And from what I remember part of the original FMTweaks team has moved on since then onto a different FM24 sim engine changes (don't remember the name right now).

A small 5th points is that we might move onto FM?? in the future (likely 27?, assuming the new ones come out stable and on time), and if this changes the stats away from normal FM, and FM27 changes it back to normal FM again this might come with some weirdness regarding player builds (although not sure how hard these changes would actually change how people would want to build their player).

[Hero19]

A question for the philosophers I imagine, or at the very least smarter than I.

An excellent article mate, extrapolates a lot of information and displays all the facts clearly.

Media Grade 5/5