It annoys me when people say “play realistic, play with a small team” it’s a game, yes it’s cool if you make it harder but who gives one, it’s a game, your supposed to have fun

People need to seriously re-evaluate their lives if they're having actual fights over this. And that goes for a lot of you in the comments, too. One of the greatest things about FM is how modular the difficulty is. Team selection, coaching badges, attribute masking, etc etc etc

I have always played with attribute masking on. But three things have happened since: i) it now takes far longer to fully scout players, ii) players can’t be scouted in the same quantities as before, and iii) I, sadly, now have less time to commit to the game due to real world responsibilities. So, from next year, I will unashamedly play without attribute masking. Before those three things, attribute masking contributed to my enjoyment of the game. And after those three things, no attribute masking will contribute to my enjoyment. I play the game to ENJOY it. Own how you play *your* game and stop telling others how to enjoy theirs!

I would love if they added a system like OOTP has where you have full stats but they are not a set number. Instead they are based on your scout or assistent's way of telling a player is good along with their performance. Would it make it harder? Yeah but it gives you a better idea and its way more realistic than either knowing everything or the current hidden system that is pretty bad with how little knowledge there even is at the start of a save where you can have 20 scouts and know next to nothing about almost any player.

Once, I found a skin (I think it was a skin) that showed only the color of the attributes but not the numbers. So, for example, if an attrubute was deep green, that meant it was 16-20. I really want to try it someday if I find it again

Zea, I wanted to let you know that it's YOUR fault I am now a player of having attribute masking on. I was binge watching your Oriental Dragons game and noticed how much fun you were having with it on. So, I decided to give it a go. While I miss being able to go "here's my criteria for min attribute levels for X position at X age, now gimme a list of everyone who meets it" and instantly find those players, I'm loving finding a player whose attribute ranges are on that bubble. That indecision when everything looks good, but one or two attributes are either okay-good or meh-okay, and you're getting desperate to choose which player to sign. Do I take the punt? Do I hold off? Can I risk it? Can I not risk it? It adds a whole new level of thrill in the transfers for me. And really, that's the only time the masking truly changes my scouting routine asides from the time factor. If I get a player who has everything in a range, but all those ranges are well below what I'm looking for, I don't need to keep scouting the legless Mr Potato Head and can focus on whether that speed demon winger I'm looking at has the intelligence of Road Runner, or the blind insanity of Coyote.

Another option Zealand/people might not know about that could be a good compromise between the 'having a precise numerical value on every attribute of every aspect of every player at the club' of the default settings and the 'manager somehow not being able to tell that Maguire is slower than Rashford from one training session' absurdity of the more realistic no attributes skin is the various skins out there that hide the number of attributes and just show a colour/star using the low/average/good/excellent thresholds in the game, essentially turning the attributes into somewhat noisy ratings from 1-4

I absolutely have watched a match between two other teams, I wasn't doing it for scouting purposes though, the result of that match was determining whether or not I qualified for CL. And I assure you it is far more painful to watch as your hopes slip away than to just see the result appear.

I personally play without attributes just because I found myself focusing on attributes way too hard. I wanted to give the other aspects of the game a bit more weight in my saves and honestly I don't really notice that much of a difference

For real (bar a multiplayer save), play however you want. I play with the editor on and I check the PA of my youth intake players before signing them. I enjoy playing this way and it doesn't affect anyone else

I like playing with masking on, it's what I've always done so it's mainly inertia, but I feel that scouting takes abit too long even with top tier scouts. Sometimes it feels it would be faster for me to go irl and watch the players than wait for my scouts.

I always play with masking on lately. Discovering wonderkinds you know nothing about beforehand is just more satisfying for me. It's too easy to filter without masking. You might say but you don't know their potential and hidden attributes which is true. However there is sort of a limit how much a player can progress from where they are. If they are terrible at 17 yo they'll never be a world class player even if their potential would suggest so. If you are looking for a pacy winger for the future he can't have less than lets say 13 or 14 or even more pace already. And so on. Most attributes won't improve more than say 3 or 4 units throughout the career. You can quite realiably judge a player at youth intake already. Will he necessarily develop well? You don't know that. But what you can do is filter out vast majority of other players that you already know will never be great. You can focus your reasources on top lets say 50 or 100 candidates rather than scouting 1000+ each year which is huge. I'd like to especially point out it's not just a matter of saving time, it's not that with masking you get the same information just later. In the end most of the information you get without masking you'll never know with masking on. You can only get X scouting reports per year, you need to manage resources far more, potentially missing players which is fine, or another team scouts and signs the player before your scouts get the chance to even see him once etc. There are a lof of opportunity costs and managing that for me is part of the enjoyment. Obviously each plays the way he likes, just presenting my perspective.

Zealand, thank you for coving this topic, you brought up really good points. I've always been conflicted on which way to play since I started playing FM touch a few years ago and it had the masking off by default. The digital projection of yourself in the game as the all knowing savant with the cutt off jean shorts and huge beard made my day.

I think the precision and accuracy with attributes is the real "problem." Correct me if I'm wrong, but the numbers you see are always "right," even when you have terrible scouts. In my opinion, and this is how games like Out of the Park Baseball do it, attributes should be imprecise and their accuracy should be based upon your scouts' abilities. In OOTP, the default settings use the traditional baseball 20-80 scale, by increments of 5 ( I can explain this in detail in a reply if anyone wants). This allows for 13 different values that can be assigned for any given attribute (20, 25, 30, ... 80). These attributes are (again, with default settings) relative to the highest league loaded in the file (typically MLB) or you can change the league used for comparison at will. If you're playing in a lower league, you can see the ratings relative to that league. Relative ratings would be super helpful in FM. Is 10 finishing high for the National League North? Maybe! Behind the scenes, these attributes are on a scale of 1-250 (with some attributes allowing overages), so the game engine can use the precise values for simulation purposes, yet it still shows you a much less precise number. And, like I mentioned above, the accuracy of these ratings is influenced by the scout's ability. You only have one scouting director and no individual scouts in OOTP, but having a whole scouting department in FM could allow you to ask each scout what they think and then maybe you could generate a "consensus" report or something. Additionally, each individual attribute in OOTP also has a potential value associated with it. A guy might have 50 Power now, which is by definition average for the league being used for comparison, but he might have the potential to increase his power to elite levels (70+). FM does almost everything better than OOTP, imo, but the fog of war in scouting is handled much better in OOTP, and I really like the potential ratings on attributes. I want to know how much faster or better at passing or how much stronger my scouts think a guy can get, not just that he has 5-star potential overall, or whatever.

The main issue i have with hidden attributes is the physicals. With stuff like vision or finishing, i understand the realism of not being able to tangibly rate a player. But with physicals you absolutely can

I like masking. Especially as a journeyman style manager I want to find hidden gems that are already good and often search by minimum attribute. The masking makes this a risk or a challenge depending on approach/finances to find the right player

10:49 As NZ's manager, I must do that. Scouts in international teams don't do much. Even with attributes visible, you could miss out on players that you think in unstoppable, but they actually play so few minutes off the bench in a lowly club team.

I play with masking off purely because I dont have much time to play the game and I like to progress through my saves. I dont really want to spend ages waiting on scout reports. When Ive got some time off I'll play with it on for a more in depth save, but having masking off really does improve my enjoyment when my time is limited.

Just appreciating the ODFC Tinder gag at 7:33 with swiping yes on Anssi Keurulainen and no on Luke Edwards.

I have always liked Hidden As as I say to myself as a lower league manager (the only way I like to play personally) I would not know the abilities of a U23 RWB from Charlton that might be on a free next year. Theres a lot of fun with scouting a player and the slow unraveling of their ability and finding that one gem to sign. The best feeling in FM for me that is

Hi ! Zealand, I'm Hernan from Paraguay i liked the content of this video and i agree with you so much ! Love the channel ! Great work dude !

Zealand fell in love with the game with masking on I fell in love with the game before it even existed, back in the 90s when it was purely text commentary as your match engine. I predominantly play Network saves with my mate now too though so just makes things quicker for us on that.

I have watched several matches to scout a player. If you set a player as a transfer target or top player it will begin to generate news articles when your scouts go to their games to scout them, which can reinforce your club's interest in the player. But if you personally go and watch the game and show the personal interest it could be the step that changes the player's mind about whether or not they want to sign for your club. It's not a common occurrence but if you find someone you really want to sign but is uninterested in signing for you or extremely doubtful it can help change their mind.

People that claim playing without hidden attributes is unrealistic just don't get how scouting in real life works. It isn't like 40 years ago when you watched videos from players in foreign leagues and then have to guess how the speed you can see will compare to players in your league. Scouting nowadays works exactly like in Football Manager. Clubs rent databases from providers like Statsbomb that contain all the informations of all players available in the package you paid for including stats like speed etc. You add the search critereas like left footed centreback with age under 25 and a value with und 10m, filter the players even more until you have a pool you are happy with. Exactly like in Football Manager. Then you call the agents to find out if the players are interested and after that you send your scouts out to do "character scouting" of the remaining players. Most of these databases have general rating systems from 1-10 for many attributes and even there wouldn't be one, the stats in the database can give you a more precise range than 20/20 scouts in Football Manager could do with masked attributes. I'm playing with director of football challenge only for the past 3 years because the game became to easy for me and i was looking for a challenge. I would never play with hidden attributes because it isn't increasing realism. But i also don't blame people that use the option the same way i don't blame people that are save scumming. Football Manager is, apart from the multiplayer, a singleplayer game and i have no right to tell people how they have to play their game. It's just gatekeeping bullshit like in metal music where people try to tell others how real metal has to be. Listen to the metal genre you like and STFU.

I once got stuck with a save and used the Genie Scout. Set some rules for myself: could only sign players from my own immediate area, limited to 160PA. I enjoyed it very much and had fun, so I win.

A portion of the FM player base has always been this way, there’s multiple ways you can play the game but if you don’t play their way you are somehow ruining the game 😂

Only want to comment: MASSIVE FOREHEAD :) That was a great easter egg! Kudos to editor Ayal! And of course, superb animations by Tomleggosaurus! Also: play as you like it, it is a single player video game most of the time!

In fm21 you could see the value of every player. You can’t anymore. I disagree because in real life you can just go onto transfer market and look up any player

I have not played FM for a while but I will admit I've watched other teams' matches to watch how players I was interested in performed in big games, I've also watched matches of players I've loaned out that seem to be doing well. Marking those matches in the calendar setting up sometimes months in advance as "view match". Sometimes I actually wanted to watch the match in question, other times just for realism, for example a manager watching a match of a prospect they've loaned out as a way to show he's in my plans for the future or watching the match of a player I want to sign to see how he performs in big matches as I said earlier, plus the game actually acknowledges when you watch the match (or at least it used to, I haven't played this year's version) and you even get news about it with a little buzz over you being spotted at the stadium watching.

If I'm really unsure about a player and I can't make a decision based off scout reports alone, I'll watch a match myself to see what he can do. Recently, I also had a scenario where I had 3 potential options from Brazil for one left wing place, though one of them could also play right wing, another position I had in the back of my mind, and all could double as a backup striker. All 3 had very different attributes, strengths/weaknesses. All of their strengths would have worked in different areas of the game utilised in my setup. I needed to see what they could do for myself and in rare cases, its helpful to do that. In the end, after much agonising, I decided to not sign a single one of them. I did sign an 18 year old Uruguayan after watching him in person though.

might have to try playing without attributes, seems interesting. no data, all vibes type of save. although I always play in the Scottish lower leagues where attributes are so low that not seeing them would hardly matter.

FM is a sandbox game and attribute masking really just changes play style. What do you like most about the game? Do you want to 'beat the game (engine)' by making the best strategic decisions or do you want to roleplay a little bit. In the first case you should not mask attributes and in the 2nd case you should play with attribute masking imho. To make the comparison, it's the difference between playing Crusader kings 3 as a map painter or a Malinese dwarf pope, both are valid. Finally, if you're a masochist you should play without attributes, it's all fine.

Personally, I have attribute masking off and play without using the search bar. I only look at the players my scouts find or national teams. It's the way I have enjoyed playing the game the most

I like the idea of attribute masking (I use it, with resentment.) but, they go overboard with it. You can know certain abilities instantly irl, certainly when you play against them, it gets kinda stupid having them masked for months. Then there's the addition of statistical analysis, the game is based on it, so when in full effect why don't you scout analysts cancel out certain masking altogether. 😐

Using my Home club Brisbane Roar as an example! Well Done Zealand!

The fact that you are using Brisbane Roar for the 2nd time is hilarious to me considering I am from Brisbane and we are really bad at football so this is really great content.

Yup, I physically scout players especially to influence them prior to or during a bid made when other clubs are interested.

3:20 - LOL I've been playing FM since 2005 (not counting Eidos times, in that case since 2002) and always played on masking off.

love that checkmate sound! also, i agree with Z point because i always use attribute masking. But everyone has their right to decide how to play the game right?

I’ve only ever used attribute masking once and found it frustrating so went back to full attributes, the thing that I haven’t explored and should is the analysts, they would be the ones telling you about the players physical stats, how good they are at the technical stuff, even the upward or downward curve of their stats, since recruitment analysts became a thing they have basically been a way to get extra nation knowledge but not done anything of purpose.

I've tried the 'no attributes at all' approach with the preferences changes to try something more difficult/realistic by actually listening to my staff and watching player more closely and use the Data Hub and player data and statistics more. Although the issue is that if you go with the preference changes it will hide not only the players attributes, but also your managers and all staff attributes... So I didn't know how good my scouts are at identifying the abilities of players, which could add another extreme layer of realism to the game by following STAFF success rate in identifying player abilities, but that is REALLY over the top for me (not to mentioned it takes YEARS to come to a conclusion whether a scout is good at scouting or not..). If you know a skin that hides player attributes, but not staff attributes, pls let me know, I could not find them on the first try, ty.

i saw on reddit another skin that had different coloured stars instead of an attribute number of 1-20 which looked really cool. So Mbappe has green stars for pace, agility, accelleration etc so you know he's rapid but then you can't tell precisely whether he's gonna beat rashford in an out and out footrace. Can't remember the post but looked pretty interesting I might give it a try soon

I remember skinning this with a custom font for the attributes, meaning it was always just a square. Then just simply colour coded based on a range.

I watch other teams games to scout a player once I've declared them as my top target. You even get mentioned in the news for making an appearance and has the ability to get a player more likely to want to join you.

After you've been playing for a while you can just feel where the attribute ranges are going to land before your scouts are able to pinpoint it exactly, so it doesn't really matter tbh after a certain level of experience with the game. It's a matter of saving some time and stress when it comes down to it, really.

I have a question, how to get club logo on top of the home button? Thank you

I think one big aspect of whether to have masking on or off is what type of save you're doing. I like to do more shorter saves with midtable/relegation level teams that have interesting set of players, where the focus isn't so much on squad building but tactics and game management. Hiding attributes is just a nuisance. If I'm doing a longer, lower tier save or a longer save in a smaller nation, squad building becomes a bigger part of the save and masking is on.

In previous FMs, you could reveal a player's attributes by watching one of their matches. Useful if the player was outside your scouting range, because there doesn't seem to be a cap on how much your club will spend on you travelling the world scouting players

I personally have always played without attribute masking, but attributes was not the main factor for me when choosing my starters it was always the performance and the match ratings of the players, that is the way i feel the game is more realistic, even when i am buying new players i rely on pros and cons of scouts reports and not on the attributes

yes, i have watched other matches for scouting purposes. i also watch matches in major tournaments. 😅

I've played the CM/FM series for many years, back in the days it wasn't even possible to mask or hide attributes. So I've always kept the masking off after it became an option. Everyone should play the game just how they want.

Seems the obvious is if they had a setting (or maybe could be done via skin somehow?) where attribute masking is off, but players only show up in player search if they've been scouted.

As somebody in law school just starting the game and worried about the time sink, I think this video convinced me to try with attribute masking off to start with

The stats being a number is realistic because the manager or a scout can watch the player and just give them a rating of 1-20 for a given stat like pace. From the arrows, we know that the number is adjusted fairly often so its not perfect omniscience but a rating that can be off.

Hi zealand. I need your help. I'm managing Wellington phoenix in Australia I finished 2nd in regular season but won the play offs do I qualify for Asian champions league as I'm struggling to understand this league its beyond strange.

10:50 never done this but did watch Andorra vs Northern Ireland who played a euros playoff final

My save in football manager is now in the year 2048, this is only the 2nd ever football manager save I have ever done so I decided to go all in, I have watched every single game up to this point. My club is Boston United a small semi pro club when I started. We started in the vanarama north where we won in 2022, and eventually by 2027 we had made our way up into championship football. After 6 long years in the championship we made our way up into the premier league in the 2032 season. Since then we have became the greatest club in the entire world, we have won the English premier league in 2038,2041,2043,2044,2045,2046,2047, and 2048 (yes 6 times in a row) The champions league in 2036, 2044, 2045, 2046, 2047 and 2048 ( yes 5 times in a row) 8 super cups 2 club world championships 7 FA Cups 7 community shields And pulled off back to back sextuples (6 trophies in 1 season) Best player in the history of Boston United is Regen from Bosnia & Herzegovina named Denis Fejzic who has scored 512 goals in 595 appearances for the club. Yes we are the greatest club in the world and not finished yet

Idk if it is gonna show up in the video later but you can set the colour to 0 or 1 and it will be the colour of the background skin so you wont be able to see it. I use it on bad attributes so that i only see what they are good at so i can have a better ideia on what kind of player they are

Would be good to have a star rating for each attribute as an option, similar to the overall star rating. Or have like a very bad, bad, okay, good, great rating relative to your level. Like a guy with 13 pace at tier 6 could have "great" pace for your team or division but then at prem it's obviously different

Play how you want. It's meant to be fun. If your idea of fun is to use an editor and fm scout go for it. If you want to mask attributes etc go for it

Hi yes I have attended a game just to scout a player I was thinking about signing and I play with Attribute Masking off, what do you say now Z?

Yes... I actually have attended another team's match (if I'm honest MATCHES so it's even sadder than it first sounds!) to scout a player. It did work out though so at least there's that! Was on the fence about signing a young Belgian midfielder who wasn't quite able to break through at Barca, he had all the talent in the world but my scouts found some serious red flags (injury prone & dreads big matches - that kind of thing). So when I noticed Barcelona had a few injuries so this, then like 19/20 year-old, enigma was going to get a shot, I attended a few of their games just to see what bonkers flair, knees of swiss cheese and zero confidence actually looked like... and he was great! So I pulled the trigger, it was pretty big money for my Greek team even after a couple of CL quarter-final runs, and roll on like 4 or 5 years now and he's won two CL titles in Greece and just led Belgium to the Euros.

Attribute-free Football Manager is the ultimate and the best difficulty the game has to offer. If you play with that difficulty then you're the best FM Manager in the world. I can't wait for you to play with that mode someday.

I prefer masking on - like yourself it's how a truly started to love the game. Also, I have on a couple of occasions watched another match to see a player in action as it were - you also get the news story that you were at the stadium to look at a player you're interested in and it can help when trying to sign a player their club is not wanting to discuss a sale as it can unsettle the player if they're not allowed to talk to you, I say it can I don't know fully how much of an impact it has when you do it.

Interesting topic. I ALWAYS played with visible attributes (mostly due to laziness I think) but, after watching Z’s Floridsdorfer save and how thrilling he makes discovering talent through scouting, I switched to hidden attributes in my latest save (also with Floridsdorfer!). I must say, it makes the game SO much more enjoyable to discover and scout cheap affordable talent and start building an empire. PRO TIP: Load and scout Syria, insane young talent for no money there.

Until I saw this, I never really thought about attribute masking. I had thought (because I didn't read the description) that attribute masking ON meant what I see is a fog of war based on my scouts ability to scout talent. And attribute masking OFF would mean the attributes were 100% accurate. I didn't realize the masking was mostly about the time it takes to scout and find players. I think if they never change how scouts operate (meaning, a 20 scout ability should scout attributes better than a 10) - then if you can play your game with discipline to not open FM Editor, then as long as you follow Zealand's advice here on how to not "cheat" with masking OFF, I feel like it's not a bad idea.

I just go with default settings because I'm too lazy to change to look/change that. Only thing I change is which leagues/nations get loaded, which is usually as many as possible starting with the most common being first.

I play lower-league (Level 10 - 12+). At that level most are < 10 for most attributes anyway. I try and play to the LLaMa rules and I like scouting players and hoping to find the diamond in the rough, especially with regens. Each to their own.

10:43 when you manage a national team then yes, you find yourself in need of watching players. You can't rely on scouts much for international management. They can't cover all the players in the pool so you got to chip in sometimes.

Wait... how do you scout if you don't use filters in the player scouting area? I guess like Z I wouldn't be able to resist that... and it's often what I do now with masking on (still pick up some people with ranges from general knowledge and then scout them fuller but obviously miss out timing wise to sign them if they're a youngster or something unless I blind bid). I guess I get it for people who only sign those that their scouts find but with or without masking that sounds like a very limiting (but awesomely realistic) way of doing things.

Unintentional shade thrown at me be Zealand there...as I have indeed watched other games to scout a player in older versions of FM. 🤣

I do watch other team match for scouting players mostly because you know how you get those players that just have that buzz about them even tho there stats are bad those that score goals and shouldnt well I found few stars doing this :D. Euro Under 21 and Under 19 competition matches it prob madness but it give you the sort next level of imersing yourself in the game :D

I've watched a few games to scout a player when i was the manager of the Brazilian national squad, but it always was a final or something like that.

I play with attributes on, I even look at them occasionally, but its all about the comparison polygon for me. Also about bringing players from obscure places to the club, Burkina Faso U19s what you got?

But even with your example by searching based on 15 pace and 15 agi irl youd just say you want certain beep test ranges etc. those nos. in the game correspond to nos. of drills and tests irl.

In comparison with real life on FM we have the disadvantage of not seeing players in training so the attributes are the way to contour this limitation

My first save I'll play them off or is it on, the one that you need to scout and then for like my 5th save I'll use it cause why should I have to scout after doing it 4 other times

Like people say play realistic so I just show them my save when I play a Celtic and I sign in Mbappé and Messi and Neymar because it’s a game you’re allowed to have fun not everything needs to be realistic and that’s what annoys me about the community some people take it so seriously

to be honest when i really want a player i will go to the next matches they are playing in and watch especially if it says looking to impress "insert manager name" with his next performance and then i can get that interest boost it gives

Even with visible attributes, unless if I know the player well enough already, I'm not completely sure if he's injury-prone, fluent in said languages, prone to fouls, or be adaptable enough to learn a second position.

The most realistic attributes would be the same logic the game already uses with player ability and potential. Make it depending on who you select that gives this ionformation and make the accuracy depending on the staff abilities. For the summary screen there should pretty much always be a little of attributes masking, showing that the staff isn't 100% on the same page, which is pretty realistc. So you could switch from summary, to a specific staff member, maybe your co-trainer, because he has good abilieties in judging and you trust him (like inr eal life) and ask his specific opinion, which shouldn't show ranges, but this specific ratings, maybe after a player plays a full season with you his main attributes should be getting also clear in the summary, because after a time I think most staff in real life would also agree on certain key strenght of a player. I mean this is how it is in real life, Teams also use rating system, even casually if you ask your collegue, hey how do you think about XYZ, often you say hmmm, out of 10 I think its a 6...or whatever, the point is attributes as ratings are actually really realistic as a measurement. Also it kind of makes sense, because the most unrealistic aspect of FM Player Masking, is that it just adds more scouting time, I mean you can literally buy the player blind, he arrives and you know his ratings anyway. Thats unrealistic, the maskings miss the point. What should happen while scouting is you should literally start nearly blank and just get the attribute rating a little closer to each other. Start 3-16 and at the end of the scxouting you have maybe 6-11. And even this dependeble of how known the prospect is, which is the most important part. A superstar player should have nearly no masking, I mean you don't need to scout Ronaldo to know what he can do in every team, because he played at the top and performed. On the other hand a scout is merely giving reccomendations. FM tries this hidden attributes, CA and Potential. Why not attributes too? Not saying this is the most fun btw. just saying if we speak of realism, nothing in the current system is good.

Yes I play with attributes on saves me time and I have more fun by planning the team and play the games. Yes I’m watching other teams playing too when I’m interested of a player to watch him if my scout reports tell me that the player is really good

Always maskin attributes, also with first window closed when starting a game. Go to filter on scouting and wait for the scout to give full rapport on the player and not feedback after every report on the player. Have played FM since CM.

Hidden Attributes is not realistic dispite alot of people saying it is. However, what it does is adding another layer of difficulty in building your team. Some like it while others don't. Both sides have their own share of points but aiming for realism shouldn't be the focus when using it since thats not what maskning stats of players are intended for. It's there to be an obstacle for added challenge like doing Ironman's and 0 Death Runs in other games.

10:49 a wild FNG has appeared

I don't mind either, I don't have a lot of time so I don't go attribute masking, Here's the thing, IRL if you started as a manager at a Man City just for example, they would have significant player data on every player in the top 5-10 major leagues in Europe to the point you could give player ratings 1-20. One aspect of attribute masking I don't like is you start with a team like a Man City, you go to a bottom half team to look at players, lets pretend Zaha at CP and his attributes are masked. Mate its Man City they already know everything there is to know about that player and virtually every other player in the league, those sort of players shouldn't be masked. I think the masking should only take place the further you get away from your level/leagues, IE: Your in EPL then players in Brazil are masked. LOL when you're a non-league team and Messi's attributes are masked

I watched a player in another club's match, not to scout them but to make the player see how much I wanted to sign them

I literally always scout even though I don’t attribute mask it so much easier! I also filter, It literally doesn’t matter anyway, I don’t want to go through the hassle of scouting every damn player

Is there any way to turn off attribute masking during a save

So not only have I watched other matches to scout a player I often do it for 2/3 games if I'm torn between 2 players. I also managed my under 23s and youth teams including playing their matches. Full autonomous control of the club

Much like most things, do it the way to want to. The give options for a reason.

Hello guys, Im completely new to FM but really want to get started. What do you guys recommend, waiting for fm23 or should I just buy fm22 instead?

As someone who plays with attribute masking off, I still rely on scouts a great deal. Also, you can tell it’s a video where Zealand forgot to take his headphones off because his voice is about 1.3x louder than normal.

I played a couple of seasons in Brazil with attribute masking off. It definitely speeds things up when you don't have access to a huge scouting team. The 'realism' argument can go both ways, so I'd definitely consider playing that way again.

I have physically attended another game to scout a player. I've only done this to unsettle a transfer target to encourage a transfer request hand in.

I use attribute masking because save are finished a bit too quickly when I can just search for the "perfect" players

How much info the game should show vs. keep hidden/ambiguous is a never ending question. Things like fatigue and sharpness used to be percentages, now they're more ambiguous. There's no right or wrong answer, but giving people options in how much they want to see for certain things is good.

When I wanna make a big transfer and I have a couple options of players I wanna sign I always go to watch them in matches against big teams

I just play with them hidden because it makes me feel even better when I find a mad wonder kid hidden away

When are the Dorfers streams? And should I get FM22 or wait for 23, Zealand has convinced me it is miles better than FIFA