No more slider bars!

Hi all! I should start with a confession. I haven't played FM since 2006.

That's not an encouraging start, I know, but prior to FM 2006 I'd bought and played just about every FM game released (all the way back to CM 96/97 on the Amiga 500 ). I used to look forward to the next instalment nearly as much as my girlfriend dreaded it and almost as much as those elsewhere on the forums second guessing the release date of the demo!

The underlying reason for this abstinence? The tactics module - team and player instructions. In what should be the most fun and engaging part of the game, is quite frankly the most cumbersome and unintuitive way of setting out your team's approach possible. You go into a match wondering if your back four should be 2 notches deeper or Gerrard's passing should be 3 notches above "short", which let's face it, probably isn't at the forefront of Rafa's thoughts going into a game. Consider this;

"Frank, I'm playing you centre mid and I'd like you to support Didier up top whenever you can, but keep an eye on your opposite number when we're not in possession. Don't dilly-dally on the ball either, move it out to the flanks sharp-ish and get yourself on the end of crosses. Feel free to have a poke from distance and you're on direct free kicks and corners from the right. Oh, and one more thing, your creative freedom is 14..."

Okay, I'm stretching it to make my point regarding slider bars but removing them would not be dumbing down the game, as some have (arrogantly) suggested, implying that it takes a greater intelligence to carefully tune all the settings to produce a winning tactic. That's not football management, nor is it realism, in fact it borders on the nerdy as you're tuning umpteen parameters. All the above human instructions could be replicated in FM without using slider bars and 20 different settings between a min and a max range, I'm sure of that. Tactics are not an exact art; if a manager instructs his defence to play a high line then at times in the game defenders may drop off if the opposition are having a period of sustained pressure, or they're playing against pace. The manager can shout from the touchline for them to push up, but he's not adjusting a sliding scale.

Anyway, I've got lots of ideas (or frustrations!), and with FM 2010 it looks like Sports Interactive are starting to address them. The work that goes into the database and much of the other features in the game are so damn good that the tactics re-work is enough to get me genuinely excited about an FM release again.

Wellcome back then!!!

what have you bin doin in the meantime.................... please dont tell me you was playin championship manager

wow. glad you got all that of your chest thats a terrible thing you have had bottled up.

thanks for sharing it with the group i feel ur pain brother:)

what have you bin doin in the meantime.................... please dont tell me you was playin championship manager

hey his past is not important he has come back to us now lets welcome him back with open arms:thup:

what have you bin doin in the meantime.................... please dont tell me you was playin championship manager

no one that likes football or videogames would play that...

Now you're back you should read some of the blogs and threads about FM10.

LOL, reading that back this morning does sound like I had a lot brewed up!

I think a lot of it is down to loving the game so much as a kid and then seeing it lose some of the essence that made it such a great game to play over short periods as well as marathon sessions. FM and games in general perhaps, have become colossal.

What's the general concensus regarding my points around the tactics module? Am I likely to be herded out of the community by pitch forks labelled an FM heretic, or is there some sympathy for getting back to basics? Don't you think the slider bars are a bit, well, clinical? As a programmer myself, I'm sure the myriad of settings aid the randomness of events on the pitch, but taking the player instructions in particular, shouldn't they be more black and white?

If the game engine uses 20 (or however many it is) shades of creative freedom from rigid to say, a free role, then using the English language a manager can probably impart five variants of instruction; rigid - some freedom - balanced (natural game?) - express yourself - free role. Then, depending on the player's attributes, morale, form, performance thus far in the game, etc. he'll be given a 12/20 or 14/20 or whatever. But that is hidden and should be determined from watching the player's movement in the game.

What I'm suggesting is reducing a manager's control but isn't that making it more realistic?

what have you bin doin in the meantime.................... please dont tell me you was playin championship manager

No, I've always stayed loyal to the original game's developers

I've dabbled with FM Handheld on the PSP, but it's never quite got its hooks into me the same way as the PC versions.

The manager can shout from the touchline for them to push up, but he's not adjusting a sliding scale.

Actually that command adjusts the sliding scale for you.