Hints and Tips on Starting and Joining Online Games

[Neil Brock]

What choices do I have in who joins my online career game?

When first creating an online career game, you can choose who can join your game via the Online Game Preferences. Under ‘Allow users to join your game’ you can choose between the following:

- Anyone
- Friends Only
- No

You also have the option to give your server a distinctive name and set a password, meaning only those you’ve given the password to will be able to join. This is a good way of stopping unwanted managers joining your game unexpectedly.

What online game settings are best when setting up my online career game?

For a career game setup there are a wealth of choices available to the user, allowing them to customise certain aspects of the game. For instance, by disabling friendly matches and forcing the assistant to take press conferences, the game will stop less frequently.

As ‘anti-cheat’ options, the host can also disable importing tactics and shortlists, and also disable humans being able to follow others human managers. This means that other managers won’t be notified when you’ve made a bid on the next big wonderkid!

What are the Processing Options available to me?

As well as the option to disable friendly control and press conferences, hosts can also set situations where the game will automatically process. There’s a variety of areas they can customise which allows the game to process frequently. Especially useful if you’ve got slow managers who are engaging in a bit of gamesmanship!

1. Open Football Manager 2022
2. Click Start A New Game and choose “Online Career”.
3. A pop up will appear – where you can set your processing options (bottom right)
4. Once you select your chosen options, make sure to press Confirm to save your options.

What should I expect for an online career game?

Unlike single player, in an online career mode there are many managers setting up tactics and making transfer bids at the same time. You’ll find that during transfer windows that the game requires you to continue more often as it waits for others to negotiate or handle the financial side.

Here are some of our top tips for a fast-paced exciting career game

Set all matches to Wednesday/Saturday fixtures – By not moving matches for TV it means managers will all be playing matches at the same time, allowing gameweeks to happen together. Can heighten the tension when playing in big matches and means rarely do managers have to sit out waiting for their next game.

1. Open Football Manager 2022
2. Click Start A New Game and choose “Online Career”.
3. A pop up will appear – navigate to Matches section.
4. Click the drop-down arrow on match scheduling options and select ‘Use Saturdays and Wednesdays Matchdays’.
5. Press Confirm to save your changes.

Set up tactics and transfer targets at the start of the game – Like in single player mode, before you press continue for the first time there’s always a fair few things to consider. We recommend everyone in your game organises their tactics and transfer targets, that way you’ve got the main time-consuming areas prepared well in advance of your first game.

Consider disabling the first transfer window – Whilst transfers are a key part of the FM experience, all the teams in game will have up to date squads that started real life football seasons. Not having this first window allows managers to get straight into the action of tactics and playing matches. And if at first you don’t succeed, that’s what the mid-season transfer window is for!

Get a quality Assistant Manager – As much as you want to be there for every single FM online session, sometimes real life gets in the way. For that reason, make sure you’ve got a quality assistant manager in place for when you’re not online. We would recommend if you know you’re going to miss the next session before you exit select your team and tactics, then go to ‘Home’ -> ‘My Profile’ -> ‘Go on Holiday’ and make sure ‘Use Current Match Tactics’ and ‘Use Current Team Selection When Possible’ are ticked before you click ‘Go On Holiday’. That way even if your assistant has his own ideas about how your team should be run, he can’t make too many changes!

How to Start an Online Career Game

1. Open up Football Manager
2. Click Start A New Game and choose “Online Career”
3. Choose your preferences with the pop up menu and then press nations
4. Choose what club/country you will play as.
5. Set the username and password so your friends can join in Game Status.

Game Status

1. You can invite your friends using the ‘Invite Friends’ button on the Game Status screen whilst playing the game. You can access the Game Status screen by clicking FM next to the in-game date and selecting ‘Game Status’.
2. When you reach this screen, click the ‘Invite Friends’ button, and a new pop up will appear listing your friends, simply click the ones you want to invite.
3. You can also sign into your Steam/Epic account to enable cross-play with your friends on other platforms.

How to Start an Online Fantasy Draft Game

1. Open up Football Manager
2. Click Start A New Game and choose “Fantasy Draft”
3. Press either ‘Quick Start’ or ‘Create Draft’
4. Choose between a Group Stage& Knockout, Knockout Cup or League then create the competition!

Join Online Game on FM22

1. When you first launch FM22, you will arrive on the landing page of the game, with several options including ‘Start A New Game’, ‘Load Game’ and ‘Join Online Game’.
2. Select ‘Join Online Game’ and once you are on this screen, simply select the lobby you want to join and enter the password, if required.
3. You can also restrict the lobbies shown to just your friends by changing ‘Created By’ and choosing your friend. Another way of reducing the lobbies shown is to search for the name of the lobby in ‘Server name’.

How to Join an Online Fantasy Draft Game

1. When you first launch FM22, you will arrive on the landing page of the game, with several options including ‘Start A New Game’, ‘Load Game’ and ‘Join Online Game’.
2. Select ‘Start A New Game-> Fantasy Draft’
3. Click 'Join Draft' and choose the correct lobby
4. You can also restrict the lobbies shown to just your friends by changing ‘Created By’ and choosing your friend. Another way of reducing the lobbies shown is to search for the name of the lobby in ‘Server name’.