Football Manager 2017 Features & Screenshots

Compilation of new Football Manager 2017 FEATURES, SCREENSHOTS & OFFICIAL WIP VIDEOS

Welcome to this years edition of our comprehensive list of Football Manager 2017 features, screenshots and work in progress videos revealed prior to the launch of Football Manager 2017.
Our compilation of the new Football Manager 2017 features and screenshots lets you get all required information to take the final decision; “shall I pre-order Football Manager 2017 or not?”.

For the coming weeks and upon the release of the Football Manager 2017 beta, Passion4FM will collect and share all the new FM17 features, improvements and minor changes in this thread. Along with screenshots and analysis of what’s new in FM17 we will share all the work in progress videos that are being released by Sports Interactive.

Get access to all the news and information prior to the release of Football Manager 2017 here at Passion4FM!

Complete List of Football Manager 2017 Features [13.10.2016]

On the 13th October 2016 we were finally able to get a better insight to the improvements and changes of Football Manager 2017. The Football Manager 2017 feature video discusses 230 changes and improvements of around 1333 features added to this years edition. Football Manager 2017 will be all about details to make the game even more realistic. The Q&A with Miles Jacobson revealed that the focus for FM17 should be analysis of players, staffs and teams – one of the key aspects of modern world football.

Below follows a list of some of the FM17 features revealed in the feature video¹ published through the official Football Manager website by Sports Interactive.

Improvements to Match Engine & Match Day Experience in FM17

One of the key areas to Football Manager is the match experience – the 3D match engine and the visual presentation of the game. For this version, you will discover not only the most intelligent match engine ever made, but an overall improved match day experience will make the game even more impressive. Enhanced visuals on and around the pitch plus new camera angles are some of the areas that make the match experience look better. Major updates to the player models, which look to create more natural movements, lightning and shadows, overall stadium enhancements and of course the most noticeable thing at matches, the grass, are done to make the game look better no matter what graphic card level your laptop got.

Below are some of the key improvements and most notable changes to the Football Manager 2017 match engine.

– While several new camera angles are added for FM17, one of them is Behind Goal Low, which lets you get even closer to the pitch as the location of the camera is just above the Goal bar. From here you will be able to watch the pitch with the vision of the Goalkeeper which lets you watch the ball movement and goal action on a better scale. Another benefit is that you will be able to see how the team is keeping their shape or if there are vertical channels that can be exploited.

– Over 1500 motion capture animation elements are added to the newest version. Some of them are the new ability of the goalkeeper to make reactive saves, while players will head and shoot the ball more in an intuitive manner, taking into account the flight of the ball better than before.

– According to the previous mentioned increased focus of more natural movements comes the improved fluidity of movements of the players. You will notice that players will be able to change direction quicker and treat the ball far better than before. This comes from the improved player model, adding more bones to each players 3D skeleton.

– The Vanishing spray we got accustomed to at the 2016 World Cup will make its appearance in FM 2017. The vanishing spray can be discovered at free-kicks in dangerous areas of the pitch and will make the match look even more realistic than before.

– Talking about realism. Football Manager 2017 features a better pre-match team presentation by letting you watch the players enter the pitch from the tunnel and lining up ahead of the main stand. A visual glimpse of the teams’ warm-ups is also shown.

In addition to the improved visual presentation of the match will FM 2017 feature some of the new match rules².
– The one player kick-off rule will make its appearance in FM 2017 as well – letting the player taking the kick-off pass the ball backward
– Players who get injured when there is a carded offense, (the player gets injured by a player who receives a yellow or red card for his foul), will now be allowed to receive treatment on the pitch.
– The end of the triple punishment will also feature in Football Manager 2017. Red card will not be given in situations when opposite player is fouled when being denied an obvious goal scoring opportunity.

Major updates and improvements to the AI logic is done. The amount of decisions the players will make per second is doubled. The result are players who are more aware of their surroundings and will have more choices to make at less time in every situation while benefiting from more options around him. All 22 players will then need to assess every situation in a more realistic manner, meaning they will consider what to do in each situation their in, while the defending player will consider how the situation may evolve and make a decision on what to do based on the positioning and movements from his teammates.

The AI in defensive phase has improved massively for FM 2017. One important improvement to note is that the AI team will adapt better to the opponent they are facing – making them harder to break down. You will notice that the AI defensive line will drop deep when facing quick attackers or push up from midfield when in control of the match.

Other improvements to AI decision making and reactions are;

– increased amount of split-second decision especially in and around the final third – it may be shots coming from under pressure, last minute tackles or great reflexive saves.
– improved reactions, such as players ability to deal with loose balls.
– improved player positioning, meaning they should now position themselves better in all situations, especially when dealing with crosses and corners.
– better judgment from the goalkeeper of whether to stay on the line or come for the ball
– more intelligent AI managers will take benefit of the different player roles far better than before and make more intelligent decisions throughout the match based on the score, such as making changes to their match strategy or preferred formation and playing style.

More contextual match commentary makes this area of the game far better than before. You will notice hundreds of new lines of text are introduced for FM 2017. The commentary will reveal more details about injuries that happen within the match and speculate about what may have caused it.

FM17 Work In Progress Match Engine Capture [03.10.2016]

On the 3rd of October Sports Interactive released an early preview of the coming 3D Match Engine. The quite lengthy video highlights broadcast the new and improved 3D Match engine plus some of the 1800 new animations and camera views available in Football Manager 2017. One of the new animations you might experience is players doing the Rabonas trick – a rather magnificent skill.

Football Manager 2017 Quick Start Opportunity

Starting a new save for Football Manager 2017 comes with the ability to decide whether you would like to quick start or use an advanced method of setting up the save’s preferences and level of detail. The quick start mode lets you get into the action quicker since the nations and league selection is more streamlined. In the career game setup you will now need to pick the team you would like to manage before other nations and leagues have even been selected. The game will then pick a number of nations and leagues that are recommended according to and depending on your selected club to manage. The database size and recommended nations and leagues will be tailored for you and your club providing a large enough pool of players and teams at your disposal, according to what your computer can handle. Loaded will be higher reputation leagues as well as specific local leagues that are recommended for your save to enhance your playing experience.

For operating systems that can handle it there is a new 64-bit version of the game alongside the old-school 32-bit version allowing Football Manager 2017 to process quicker and be less resource demanding. The result is that the game will utilize as much of the memory as possible.

Improvements to You as Manager

After the introductory of Manager on the touchline comes the ability to put your own face to the manager. Now you can upload an image of your face and generate the manager on the touchline with your own generated face. All you need to do is mapping out 11 points on your face which will transform your face into a generated facial model. This will be your own manager avatar. Whilst being able to create a generated avatar of your face comes more opportunities to customize yourself as manager. Several different facial hair types, the ability to select glasses or not or even change the color of your tie plus choose from a number of different outfits lets you tailor your manager avatar to your preference. The aim is to let you customize the manager avatar as close to how you look as possible.

Your very own manager will be presence directly from the start screen letting you feel you’re being within the game.

Under the hood improvements have been made to the manager reputation.
Starting a new save will put more attention to the managers level of reputation as this is set more realistically and affect their future career/job options. If you decide to go as a Sunday league manager you will need to achieve much success before bigger clubs will take you seriously and approach you. This means that for a lower league management save you will have to be more patience working your way up the system under the understanding that promotion and transfer to a higher reputed club must come from winning trophies and perform above expectations.

Apart from that will Football Manager 2017 feature your own personal assistance that will be presence within the game and assist you in different situations. He will not only setup a recommendation of players, clubs, regions or nations to follow in the later mentioned social feed, but remind you of specific tasks.

New FM17 Backroom Staff Roles & Improvements to Backroom Advices

The level of expertise for the backroom staff team will be a major factor to how accurate feedbacks and advices are in Football Manager 2017 and can make or break a team’s run of performances if you lend yourself too much on their recommendations. What you will notice for Football Manager 2017 is that backroom advices are spread across the game rather in a single screen. By keeping an eye on the latest recommendations and advices from the backroom staff team located to the left of the continue button, you will be more on hands. You will then receive contextual advices according to the area of the game you have in front of you. So if you are on a player profile you will receive advices about player developments such as individual training or if you are on the tactics screen you will receive tactical suggestions from one of your coaches responsible for that area or your assistant manager (tactics).

Backroom advices will cover more detailed information and provide you with tips about how to handle the specific situation plus let you decide whether you will apply all the suggestions or simply select one or two.

With the Director of Football and Head of Youth Development finally under control comes two new staff roles for Football Manager 2017. One is the Sports Scientist who will work with the medical team and have the important task to reduce each players injury rate and jadedness. A good sports scientist will limit the amount of reoccurring injuries.

The other is the Data Analyst, who will provide you with detailed pre- and pro match analysis. As part of the scouting team, he will provide you with beneficial reports about the next opposition strength and weaknesses, key players, plus detailing tactical trends from the opposition’s previous match. He will also analyze your own performance and tactical plan.

Revamped and improved are also the other backroom staff members and their level of performance.
– In Football Manager 2017, the assistant manager will give you his recommended formation and present it in the tactics screen. To see his recommended formation simply go to the tactics drop down menu, and it will be visible under ‘Set To Formation’.
– Physio’s will now highlight how injury prone a player is after they have assessed them at the medical.

Another minor feature is the ability for players who are in their final years of a long football career to start attending a coaching course. This may happen for players who are more likely to take up a coaching role once they hang up their boots.

FM17 Board Improvements

– Boards will from now behave on a more dynamic and more realistic way – working a lot more closer with the manager. In FM17 the board will approach you more often and would like to discuss everything from the size of your backroom staff team to budget adjustments. Some chairmen will also seek your opinion about the staff and the clubs current facilities after a take over.

– The board will also give you more input on your relationship with affiliating clubs, letting you negotiate existing partnerships, get more details about the current length of the partnerships and how beneficial the partnership is to your clubs commercial income.

– Revamped is also the Interact with the board on the transfer offer screen, letting you enter a meeting about allocating more funds for a marquee signing.

– Apart from sugar daddies who will behave more realistically and act more dynamic, meaning they will change the type of investment they put into the club according to and whether on the club moves up or down in the league structure, comes a new type of sugar daddy chairmen. The Underwriter who expects return of his investments will take over a club below the top flight with good prospects, but who have some sort of debt. They will then pay off that debt, but the loan will have to be repaid if the club reaches the top division, as well as taking out profit from the club in the long run.

– the richest Sugar daddies will use advanced logic before choosing a club to take over.

Changes to Players In FM17

FM17 adds further depth to a player’s character by improved player personalities and progression modeling. For once, personally traits have been enhanced and are more versatile working with a wider range of features; a player’s ambition, his loyalty, determination, and professionalism have a larger bearing on how successful a player will become throughout his career. For example, a player with low adaptability will be less likely to move abroad for the fear of getting homesick.

Several changes have gone into how players will change over time. The algorithm of a player’s decline and how attributes will decline once a player reaches the final chapter of their career has been massively overhauled. The algorithm will now take into account the clubs training facilities, the amount of first team football time he gets and how long he has played first team football for. This is not only an important issue to note for older players, but an important part of succeeding with youth development as first team football, or at least playing time will be a more important factor than ever.

Players may also come to you and tell you they would like to join a specific club even though another club has offered higher wages.

New is the ability for the players to attend exclusive interviews and reach out to the local press in order to turn the public opinion of his situation in his favor. This to try forcing a specific outcome should they be unhappy about a particular issue.

A revamp of the player comparison screen gives you a better insight to the differences between the two selected and adds more information about the two in one screen. Get an insight to the player positioning and roles the two is most suited for, read their coach report or check out their season stats.

NEW! Social Feed Tab & Other Revamps to Inbox Messages

Introduced to the newest version of the game are a social feed tab, wich has beenbeen in the works for the past 3 years. Here is the reality of the real life social medias effect on our lives integrated to the game. While media will share news about clubs, competitions and players, the fans will share their views about teams and players’ performances, players transfer rumour sagas and other things that may happen in your career will pop up here featuring hashtags for the involving player(s), club, nation or competition. Similar to having a twitter account you can follow and unfollow specific players, clubs, nations or competitions, receiving specific social feed items about the subject you follow.

The social feed tab will feature fan polls and reactions to major stories. It will be the place where transfer rumours start to sprout. It may be worth having an insight to the fans and medias views and expressions.

Because of the changes to the manager’s reputation, the fans and media will be more likely to be cynical and vocal when assessing your achievements, or lack of it, when a lower reputed manager is hired at a bigger club.

Social feed posts and other inbox items will now feature video links to match highlights and multiple goal highlights – viewable from a pop-up player.

About the Revamp on the Inbox
The inbox and the news items have received a revamp too. Now the inbox will be to go-to place for information from anyone directly involved with your managing club, such as backroom staff, the board, agents and players, as you will receive emails from them. Your personal assistant will also forward really important information to you which you needs to assess. The inbox is created so you will receive more relevant information whilst also making it easier for you to digest all that information.

One major revamp to the inbox and their news items are how certain information is presented – letting you receive more information to make quicker decisions without the need of leaving the screen. It actually decreases the amounts of ‘unnecessary’ clicks – by having to click back and forth from one screen to another.

Dynamic images will also see its appearance in FM 2017. This means that players or news items will have unique tailored background images appear depending on the current situation – if he has signed for a new club or an image showing why the match was postponed due to bad weather.

Dynamic match odds will be calculated in a different manner than before. This means that the match odds will depend on the current team morale and form, and change on a weekly basis according to the current performance of the match week, based on the pre-season media prediction. If you perform worse than what the media predicted for pre-season the match odds will increase, which will subsequently add more pressure to the manager if the match odds are increased match week after match week. Personally, I think it will have a huge positive impact on FM 2017, making the game even more realistic as you will feel more pressure when the club’s performance is below par.

The backroom staff team will be more important than ever – providing valuable hints, opinions and feedback on a wider variety of subjects. It will not only let you make quick and firm decisions based on the backroom staff’s recommended advice, but the report cards will hold valuable information that may improve the player or benefit the squad in the long run. These report cards and backroom advices can be suggestions on who to promote from your youth team or which players to target, or on the contrary advices about specific individual training areas certain players may benefit from attending.

FM 2017 Changes to Transfers & Contracts

The transfer market of Football Manager 2017 looks to become as authentic as possible, replicating real-life situations the manager of the footballing world can experience when buying or selling players. Players and agents have more power than ever before, while the AI clubs will act far more intelligent when doing business. Both players and clubs will hold out if a far better deal is likely.

Some of these improvements to make this part of the game more realistic are;

– the addition of the new pre-contract conversations will make a big change to how transfers and contract renewals are handled. Now you can setup a meeting with the player or with his agent laying out some specific contract promises. This change can become beneficial when dealing with a player with major interest from other clubs and/or who only has a slight interest to join your club letting you sell the club to him! The contract promises will vary from promises about preferred position and/or role to improve specific areas of the club, such as the training facilities or coaching team. It allows you to detail for the player how you see the player will fit into your current side and promise some specific contract demands that may lure the player to agree on a contract extension or sign a transfer contract. Once agreed, these pre-contract promises will be set as managers promises you will be expected to keep otherwise the player may turn unhappy.

Other changes and enhancements to transfers and contracts involves;

– Transfer sagas will now play out for a longer duration of time, sometimes for the whole transfer window.
– Transfer activity can be kept track on via the new dedicated transfer window panel
– Clubs are more intelligent identifying transfer targets. They may stall offers if they think they can reach a better deal when there are multiple interests or even deny selling a certain player to you before a suiting replacement has been identified and signed.
– changes to the deadline day let you experience journalists that will come to you more often looking for news stories to sell or outlandish rumors circulating in the press.
– In additional, you will be able to adjust transfer budget and wage budget on deadline day
– agents will go back and forth in situations where there are multiple interests and offers – seeking the best deal for himself and his player.
– Agents will offer more detailed feedback in contract negotiations and send an email if their client will re-negotiate a contract when previous talks have broken down.
– For some transfers on deadline day you will get an advice if a loan deal with a later permanent transfer move is the best approach to get the deal done in time.
– NEW! Third transfer lock option lets you lock down a specific transfer clause or a fee whilst another is partly negotiable, providing more leeway in the transfer negotiations.
– Several new clauses are added depending on whether the player is actually getting playing time or not. These clauses are, but not limited to; Playing Monthly Fee, Unused Monthly Fee, Playing Wage Percentage, Unused Wage Percentage, Minimum Fee Release Clause for Continental Competitions, Mandatory Future Fee (attached to loan deals).
– manager transfers can also happen. You can decide that a transfer shall happen in the end of the season or immediately.
– full transfer value (after clauses) are now shown instead of upfront value.
– loads of new transfer clauses are added, such as South American players are more willing to come to Europe
– player transfer conversations have become more indepth

Changes to Scouting in FM17

With more focus on statistics and video analysis of a team’s and a player’s match performance within the modern world of football, it’s time to replicate and improve the realism of the tools the scouting team uses in real life and feature this in Football Manager 2017. Some of the improvements to the scouting model are;

– A re-designed next opposition report lets you get more detailed information about the team, its preferred and most likely formation, likely playing strategy and mentality plus an overview of the key players and their strengths. You will receive suggestions on specific match preparation that looks to exploit specific weaknesses or counter specific strengths.

– Highlight reels of a specific transfer target will be a highly welcomed feature for Football Manager 2017. A highlight package will be received when or if you scout a specific player. It lets you watch sequences of the player you target.

– Scouts will also inform you about injuries a player may have that may prevent the player from training full time.

– The team report panel is massively improved, providing you with some of the strength and weaknesses we have become accustomed to from the player scout report card. The team report card lets you see a breakdown of the team’s abilities or lack of it. Here you will see how good the team is performing statistically or the individual average level of the players, such as players overall technical or mental abilities according to the other clubs within your league. The relevant statical information lets you see if there are room for improvement or tactical changes must be done to improve shot accuracy, passing accuracy or general squad depth.

When talking about the squad depth, there are some great improvements to the squad depth screen, which is now laid out on a graphical pitch for improved visualization. Now the squad depth is laid out according to your preferred formation. But you can also select other formations and get a visual presentation of the current squad depth according to the player positioning and roles for the specified formation. The result is that you get a clear view on who your strongest players are at each position no matter if you prefer a 5-3-2 formation or an asymmetric 4-1-4-1 formation.

Subtle changes to player search have also been done. Not only can you sort the number of days a player has spent in a country, which is beneficial to keep track of any home-grown rules or relegations, you can also sort primarily and secondary. With a simple click, you can decide to primarily sort by value and secondary by wage.

Football Manager 2017 Match Analysis

With the partnership of Prozone introduced to Football Manager for FM2016 and their latest rebranding of stats, this will also be noticeable in FM17. For example, the match analysis summary shows heat maps of both teams – giving you a visual presentation of where the match was won, or lost. Each team’s best and worst performer gives you an insight to who needs a reprimand or who deserves praise. The summary picks out key statistical information giving you a better overview of the stats and which tactical strategy was most successful at the current match.

– New events in the match analysis let you see where possession were gained or lost and where individual touches were made throughout the course of each player’s playing time.
– Assists as a new selectable category let’s you see where the assists came from and how it occurred.
– A new focus of attack on the Action Zones lets you see where the team looks to penetrate and if changes must be made in order to change the scoreline.
– Another improvement is also a visual presentation of the passing network of your team using the specific formation.

FM17 Media Interaction

– Press Conferences and media interactions have been made more contextual this edition. What you say and do at press conferences will affect what will pop up in the social feed and the views from the fans and media on you as manager. It may haunt you down and put extensive pressure when things get rough.
– More questions about match events, transfers, player happiness and injuries are some of what you will experience at press conferences. Nothing new in particularly, but the way the media will look for their next headline will be more clever.
– Other managers may also voice their opinion about external affairs and increase the drama outside matches.

Changes to the Football Manager 2017 Fantasy Draft Mode

The popular fantasy draft is further enhanced for FM 2017. New is the addition of AI managers, which lets you decide to compete against your friends, only AI managers or a mixture of the two. The AI managers you’ll see in the game are friends and colleagues of Sports Interactive which has been given the option to setup their managers preferences in the game. AI managers will have their own and unique preferred formations. You will be able to choose up to 31 manager(s) to compete against, whether it is 10 AI managers and 21 of your closest friends or vice versa.

– A change to the squad budget option lets you choose from £20M to £250Mill to draft players and staff from, whilst you will also have the option to tick a mid-season competition draft. It lets you remove unwanted players in your squad in the middle of the season and reclaim the money their initial cost you. Funds that are available from first draft plus the new allocated squad budget can be spent in this mid-season transfer, or should I say drafts window.
– Improvements to the filtering have also been done – letting you find suitable players quicker whilst increased the size of the timer making it easier to see how much time you have left on your pick.
– A new panel which details how many players you have picked for each position will come in handy.
– ability to import and export your fantasy club and kit for every fantasy draft you play without needing to type in the details every time you start a new fantasy draft game.

Other Notable FM 2017 Improvements

– The clubs history screen will show you all players you have signed and transferred since the beginning of the save, plus you will also be able to track where they are now. The list of players played at your club will be arranged by season.

– Another addition to the clubs history screen is the ability to track records of most goals in all competitions for a season, the most clean sheets a season and the most wins a season.

– Added pre-season odds for the top goalscorer and player of the year award

– New generated names for newgens lets you discover doubled barrelled surnames. Especially Danish newgen names will see a major improvement.

– More statistics shows in the bottom of the processing panel

– The Austrailian youth league system is revamped to reflect the new Conference system that is used.

– MLS AI managers will behave more intelligent with their selection in the Super Draft, meaning they will draft players who will improve on squad weaknesses.

– FFP rules have been fully updated for the new season including a range of new embargo restrictions that allow you to do loan and transfer within the parameter of financial fair play sanction limits.

– More customized columns are added to certain league tables. Now you can check the table for first and second half of the season.

– New facility requirements and actual prize money rules for Sports Interactives newest licensed league; the Polish Extraklasa.

– Fully updated competition rules around the world and up-to-date squads and player data to get your Football Manager database as accurate for the 2016/2017 season.

Football Manager 2017 Create A Club Mode

For this edition of the popular create a club mode comes the ability to add more players to your squad more easily. You will be able to;

– create new players, such as adding your friends into the game with the ability to customize player data, personal data and relationships like you had the editor in front of you.
– search for existing real-life players, and add them into your squad with just a click. Similar to the fantasy draft mode you will be allocated a certain budget which the value of the player will be deducted from the overall budget.

New Additions to the FM17 Network Play Mode

If you should like to play a network game against your friends or other people within the Football Manager Community, the experience of FM17 Network play will be quicker and more intelligent. Lots of new options will let you progress through the game more quicker without missing any important managerial businesses.

– The host can now set a maximum time between requested stops, customize a timer for important messages to be shown and interacted with.

– The users of a network game can decide whether or not they want their assistant manager to handle friendly matches. When this option is ticked this will disable their control of friendly matches.

Football Manager 2017 release date: 4th of November 2016
FM17 available for PC, MAC and Linux

Sources

1# FM17 Feature video published on www.footballmanager.com
2# Laws of the game changes ahead of the 2016/17 Premier League season