I've not posted in here yet because the majority of my dreams are in the first few posts.
I'm a sim-gamer in general, and my dream football game would be ... well, an eSport Pro's nightmare.
⚽ It would be Football Manager off the pitch in every way (including how attributes, cohesiveness and morale work)...
⚽ ...and on-the-pitch in the way that every player has their own brain - doing their defensive duties without being babied, and making their own terrible decisions that ruin my attacks.
⚽ I'd love to play a football game that was truly 11v11 again, so that when playing Manager Mode, every player's attributes (on both sides) really mattered...
⚽ ...where training boosts cohesiveness, a bit like the "Team Chemistry" idea from modern PES - but implemented in a realistic fashion (NOT by making the AI into Gods). For example, low-cohesive defenders playing the opponent onside, leaving huge gaps between each other etc... Midfielders and strikers timing their runs incorrectly...
(All of which you would have to manage by controlling the individuals -
creating a brand new kind of "skill gap" that mirrors real-life, and I genuinely think online players would find that a breath of fresh air - up until the point where the cohesiveness goes up, at which point they become far less likely to make teamwork mistakes.)
⚽ That cohesiveness could be tied to the tactics/strategies - again, PES style - so that if you change the instructions, the team really has to adapt to it before they get good at it (unless they're the most basic instructions in the world).
⚽ But also -
let it be difficult to achieve things, let it take time. If I want my team to get to 100% cohesiveness* as a priority, then I should have to set that as the training priority,
and sacrifice something else (like general attribute growth).
*Not every player should be able to achieve 100% if they don't have the right attributes for it, like trying to get Tranmere defenders to play out of the back - and to get them closer to 100%, you should need to train the relevant attributes, e.g. passing in this example.
⚽ No trick-stick... Put that in Volta. Give me some basic rollovers and contextual skills based on the player's attributes, rather than needing to enter some Street Fighter combos.
⚽ Screw responsiveness - let every animation play out. Don't speed it up or splice it in a crazy way just to ensure that my pass is hit when I demand it hit. I'm not a baby.
⚽ Screw fake physics - I hate the fake physics, where the ball flies like a bullet to ensure it reaches the player. There has to be a uniform, strict set of physics laws, so if I'm trying to pass directly from CB to ST all the time, I give the ball away all the time.
Same if I try to head a pass 60 yards from a ball with zero momentum. It looks weird, it feels horrible... give me real physics.
⚽ I want the game to punish me for trying to do too much with players who have below-average attributes. Again, I'm not a baby.
⚽ I
don't want the game to punish me because I picked "Legendary", so all the AI players ping-pong pass the ball up the field in seconds like Man City, when they're Mansfield Town.
⚽ I want midfielders to track back for the love of God. If I finish a 5-minute half and there's been 3-4 shots because I've had to pass back and forth trying to find some space,
I'm ecstatic.
⚽ I want different tactics to be required in different circumstances, and for them to work as they should....
...so if I'm Tranmere (League Two), if I try to play as if my players have any technical ability (trying to tiki-taka up the field),
I should be humiliated by how many times a first-time pass goes completely awry,
not rewarded. I should be having to hit long balls all game long.
And they should be loose balls, not locked onto a pass target every single time... and that should still work occasionally, where a striker has enough time (and reading of the game) to change his run, get onto the pass and score.
⚽ And do you know what I'd really love? If I could play this game online with friends...
Especially if we could play in a mini-league, with a cup, and with transfers. I'd die happy, then.
If I think of anything else, I'll come back...
If there is a lot of negative feedback, they change something (maybe). If the "next gen" versions didn't have such bad gameplay, they'd never know about it. But that doesn't mean there will be changes. So we'll play the good 16 
).
