Getting ready for "Muppet Management"

As I have alluded to before and as I shall expand upon with FM10 my theory of Muppet Management will be tested "soon" (30/10/09 is not soon enough though). I wont go into details of my theory on this occaision, except to say it involves letting the Ass Man do everything and reacting precisely to his in match advice.

The purpose of my thread is to make a few points relevant right now.

1/ I have tried the CM10 demo, it runs too slowly to be "playable" in my opinion but contains some features I think FM11 could utilise, including watching training drills.

2/ I am saddened that comp editors have such high profile (and must have taken a lot of man hours to develop) whilst the sounds in match are, we are told not, going to improve much, and as it would take a big improvement to reach even CM01-02 standards that baffles me. To be fair many players say they dont use match sound at all preferring music but is that because sound is so poor?, Its a vital part of the game experience for me. I must also note that the editor seems to be much appreciated by the majority so maybe I am alone with this view set.

3/ I have just patched 9.03. 9.02 was so dissapointing I could not be bothered with FM9 anymore and had reverted to FM06 / CM0102 in the summer. 9.03 is a great improvement and with Notts Co I have started a very successful game which has boosted my confidence in FM09, although a lot of my issues with it kick in mid / post season and it is still early days right now.

4/ Cannot wait for the new tactical UI. Shame it was not fothcomeing 3 years ago! It feels like SI made a game then waited for wwfan etc to devise a way to make it easily accessible. Just my opinion.

Lastly, FM10 was to be the first SI footy sim in 8 years whereby I have not booked release day as holiday, and I stated as much in a Post a while back. Glad to say the details released so far and my restored faith through 9.03 have made me book that days hol now (just trying not to think of last years DRM attrocity though!)

1/ cm is utterly rubbish and watching training drills would be a waste of time but if you set it up so you instruct the coaches about the drill so you dont have to watch it.

2/ I believe that compition editor is a great feature because you can create new league from country so for example leagues across africa and sounds arent that important.

3/i havent played 9.3 much.

4 Great feature

From other threads on in game sounds I got the impression that most do other things while playing because they want to rather than due to the quality (or lack thereof) of game sounds. I know this is true for me personally. I watch tv while playing so wouldn't use the sounds even if they were world class.

I think only a minority of people will actually use the editor but I think a far greater proportion will utilise files that others have created. I think the complexity or simplicity of use will determine whether this feature is ultimately considered a success.

I agree that training needs improvement as it's an important part of a manager's job. The balance between making it useful and rewarding and making it a chore is crucial however. If you had to sit through numerous drills between games it would quickly become a chore. Don't know enough about CM to comment though.

I don't know how much influence managers have on the actual training side of things, although I suspect some managers are more involved than others. I suspect it works thus: The coaching staff with qualifications probably have more of a say of things - the manager may dictate some long-term goals (i.e. Alan Smith - retrain to central midfielder), but the coaches execute things. The manager may sometimes step in during training sessions to shout at players and the manager will obviously keep a key eye out on things - arguably the presence of the manager helps the players develop even if he does nothing at all.

So while we cannot go into such depth we could leave the option to do so but most of the options default to "Leave to coaches", in the knowledge that the coaches will do a good job and you tinkering things is more likely to make things worse, but leave perhaps an option to manually adjust a player's training schedule (for example, if you have a one-trick pony, ignore his technical training and work on his teamwork, overriding the general training scheme).

You should be able to adjust training intensity, so for example if you have 3 matches in a week you could knock training down before a match. You should be able to tell Rooney, who will play 90 minutes in all these matches, to miss training on the days before the match to conserve his energy (or miss most and only attend fitness training). You should be able to also set "recuperation" schedules more easily, so players recover quicker than they do normally which could be useful for players who have simply been kicked around too often. There should be a separation between first-team, reserves and youth squads which is beneficial and promotion to a higher training group will result in a boost in morale for the younger player but they have to earn it. Promote a rubbish player and the first-team could suffer, for example. This would mean the role of "first-team coach" and "youth coach" is non-existent - you assign coaches to the appropriate training group(s) as necessary.

As for training matches, you could be able to sit through these if you wish (or leave to coaches), and modify tactics as you wish. Other methods like 5-on-2 and 4-a-side matches should be available, and these methods, while useless on the pitch, will help boost teamwork and team spirit if they work.

From other threads on in game sounds I got the impression that most do other things while playing because they want to rather than due to the quality (or lack thereof) of game sounds. I know this is true for me personally. I watch tv while playing so wouldn't use the sounds even if they were world class.

Same here. I've had the sounds turned off for years now and I wouldn't turn them back on however good they were.

The fact I can multi task while playing FM is what makes it appeal to me, I'm not sure I could play it without football/SSN/music/radio on in the background.

Same here. I've had the sounds turned off for years now and I wouldn't turn them back on however good they were.

The fact I can multi task while playing FM is what makes it appeal to me, I'm not sure I could play it without football/SSN/music/radio on in the background.

I read while I play, and I can't read with TV/Music/Radio/Game Sounds in the background, so i'm usually playing in silence. It's a good way of avoiding watching the big matches when you get nervous :o