[JeffR]

Originally Posted by Hadehariast

Moving back towards talk of the 2014 patch...

1) Should we expect the changes to the match engine to radically change the usefulness of certain players? Earlier, enforcers weren't fighting as much as they do in real life, for instance. Should we expect to see more of that, for instance?

We'd already done some work in this area to get the enforcers fighting more often, but yeah, the routines that govern when fights occur have been rewritten to make a larger percentage of fights happen when each team has a willing/frequent fighter on the ice. That should deal with the problems of too many matchups between a goon and occasional fighter.

2) Related to that, should we expect to see players like Steve Ott and Antoine Roussel have a little more value to their respective teams because they can perform their sort of hybrid enforcer/pest/secondary scorer roles better?

That gets into the area of coaching preferences, something I'm working on at the moment. To some coaches, the physical aspect is going to make that type of player more likely to get increased use, but, for example, most non-North American coaches probably won't have much of a use for it.

3) Is it worthwhile playing out a save several years into the future at this point? I'm hesitant to do so, because I don't want to see a patch come out shortly that will require a restart for best results. I presume that any patch will be save game compatible, but I know from previous experience that a fresh start is almost always preferrable.

That really comes down to personal preference. If you're enjoying playing the game now, why not? Everybody knows the new Football Manager will receive multiple patches that are best experienced with a restart, but that's not stopping a million or so people playing it at the moment. (On the other hand, I have to admit I'm waiting and watching Steam for a big Crusader Kingdoms II discount so I can get up to date on their DLC before starting a new game. Like I said, personal preference.)