Difficulty levels - a different way

I think difficulty levels should be in.

However, I do not think they should have any effect on the match engine at all - it would be hard to code, lead to bugs an plain wouldn't work. Howver, they could be in without changing any in game calculation - just get the game to hold users hands a bit more.

For example: You are in match and the assistent comes up with advice relating to us losing the ball too often due to poor short passing, and the user should play more direct.

Very easy - the message comes up as (say we are man utd vs chelsea): 'Our passsing has been poor today. In particular, we have misplaced far too many short passes, especially from our centre-backs. To solve this you should play a longer, more direct passing game, making sure our centre-backs are told to quickly clear the ball upfield.'

Easy: 'Our passsing has been poor today. In particular, we have misplaced far too many short passes. To solve this you should play a longer, more direct passing game'.

Normal: 'Our passsing has been poor today. In particular, we have misplaced far too many short passes.'

Hard 'Our passsing has been poor today.'

Very Hard: Assman advice disabled.

This could be implemented in many areas of the game, from choosing your club, to making your tactics, signing staff, picking your team, transfer negotiations, and many others. On very easy, you will be practiclly told what to do, good for those who know little about football and need lots of help at the start. On very hard, you will get no advice at all - it is all down to your judgement. One other key point - on the easier difficulties, the game should help you get a very good assman (maybe even a perfect one on v.easy) so that he won't give you nonsence advice, even if you are in the BSS/N.

Thoughts?

(I know I posted this on the thread a bit further down but thought I would make my own topic as people were responding to the OP containing a very different idea)

Terrible idea and others will say the same. This sort of thread always gets asked and then shot down in flames

Any reason why this idea is 'terrible'? I don't mind constructive criticism but yours isn't and I do not think this has been suggested before in a way that does not make the match engine cheat, or is near impossible to code, or will cause a lot of bugs, etc.? I used a search but didn't find links with the EXACT SAME implementation of this idea so I would be grateful if you could point me to these that you say you have seen?

Terrible idea and others will say the same. This sort of thread always gets asked and then shot down in flames

ill load my framethrewer

Terrible idea and others will say the same. This sort of thread always gets asked and then shot down in flames

It's not a terrible idea. The idea of difficulty levels affecting the match engine (or any other AI calculations) is a fundamentally bad idea, but providing differing degrees of assistance and advice to less able users is definitely the way forward. And it's a way that SI seem to be taking anyway (e.g. tactics creator, backroom advice, advisors, assistant handling press conferences/team talks).

I don't like the idea as it's your assistants job to give you the best advice he can regardless and if you don't wish to use it yourself you can discard it and in therory the better the coaching staff you have the better there advice will be anyway. so that's why i don't see a point to this. If you want better advice you find better coaches and assistants correct?

I would imagine an easier way for people struggling would be to use the editor to get you the best assistant manager regardless of who you are. But would the ass man want away if you were a conf south side for example?

It is certainly a better idea than messing about with the ME. I also dont think you should ask people to use the data editor to make the game easier - that is using the wrong tool for the job.

I dont think there is anything wrong with making the game more appealing to different kinds of gamers - and if difficulty settings are one way then why not? So long as it can be turned off or does not interfere with the game as it is now, what difference does it make?

Something like extra assistant manager advice is relatively easy to implement and probably quite helpful to those struggling.

Don't amend the ME, sure, but dont dismiss ideas like this out of hand either.

I personally dont pay much attention to the assman anyway, so im not sure how much of a difference it would make to a game i was playing. Im also of the opinion, that such changes would only limit the amount of text available to the player, and wouldnt really have much of an effect, if any on the actual difficulty of gameplay. It wouldnt affect the AI's ability to make its on tactical decisions, therefore it clearly wouldnt make it any easier to win games. Even if the gamer decided to play on the easy setting, this would only give him advice. This advice would still need to be implemented in the correct manner for it to have the desired and positive effect. As such, its clear to me anyway that such a decision to implement difficult levels in this style would represent a illjudged direction for the game, and one that i feel would be rather unwelcome amongst its fans.

I personally dont pay much attention to the assman anyway, so im not sure how much of a difference it would make to a game i was playing.

such a decision to implement difficult levels in this style would represent a illjudged direction for the game, and one that i feel would be rather unwelcome amongst its fans.

So then why worry

This advice would still need to be implemented in the correct manner for it to have the desired and positive effect.

That is a good point actually - perhaps it should be aimed at not only giving extra advice

'we should play with A Smith on the wing'

but also reasons why

'because he has good pace and dribbling'

So the beginner can make the connection themselves between (in this case) pace and playing out wide. Or crossing and playing out wide or work rate and being a defensive midfielder or whatever the case happens to be.

If they did this enough it might be that they start to pick up on this themselves over time, reducing the need for extra help. Kind of like FM stabilisers

I thought we can choose "difficulty level" before starting the game and I chose "default". There was options, something like "experienced". I am not too sure about this, please correct me if I am wrong.