Dynamic Ability versus Flex-Ability

Written by Julius / Wonderkid of Football Manager Fanboys

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What is Flex-Ability?

Flex-Ability (FA from now on) is a bonus mulitplier which is added to managers. It boosts the players who are playing under them and improves their stats. So for example a youngster who goes to Manchester United and works under Sir Alex Ferguson would improve a lot more than if he was at Man Utd under the management of Dave Whelan.

Sir Alex Ferguson has continuously developed young, promising talent (ie. Cristiano Ronaldo) and lengthened the careers of Ryan Giggs and Paul Scholes for example. Where as Mike Whelan hasn't. In Football Manager it's not taken into account how much a player can grow under a specific manager.

If Fergie retires in FM and Whelan takes over, he can carry on the exact same role as Fergie did, enjoying the same results and the same success but he isn't the same manager as Fergie is. Surely there should be a dynamic statistic which influences success and failure of a manager and not basing success on the team's reputation? The better the manager surely the better influence he'd have on a player?

What's wrong with the current system?

It's very simple. SI Games have overlooked one massive aspect to management. The actual manager. Manager's aren't the same, human managers will differ from AI managers and their management methods will not be the same. The impact each manager has on their team isn't taken into account at all.

CA is the statistic of the players ability. PA is the statistic that defines the potential ability of any given player.

Now the flaw is this.. the top talent in the game (players with high PA or negative PA) only move to good clubs with training facilities which will make them grow. You'd never get Aguero going to a crap club, you'd not see the players with negative potential going to weak clubs.

SI base the CA and the PA of a player to only be attracted to clubs with a specific range of reputation. These high ranking clubs are often managed by managers with pre-defined, high statistics.

If you're looking for great young talent in FM you can find a shortlist from here, start a new game and the players are there on a plate. This can only happen because Sports Interactive have two ability calculations (Current Ability and Potential Ability). Now PA is the growth span of any player in the game, it dictates how good a player can become with the right training - but it doesn't define the one key aspect of management - The effect the manager has on the player.

How does FA work?

Very easily. FA is added to managers as a hidden statistic. This stat will then affect the players PA at a club and allow them to grow faster - if the manager is very good with young players for example. If the manager is really poor with youngsters the players wouldn't develop so well.

Each manager would have a key FA. For example Kevin Keegan is a great motivator so he'd have a team with high morale more often than not. Fergie and Wenger are great with youngsters so they'd develop youngsters better than Keegan. You'd get Mourinho who's teams are often very well prepared defensively, so defenders would grow better under Mourinho than Keegan (who is more focussed on attacking).

AI managers don't affect the game enough. You should see AI managers failing if they're not compatible with the club and it's way of playing the game.

SI Games take into account the way each team plays, the clubs already have a predefined status and reputation, so all you'd do is add this feature to managers and that would then give the game more un-predictability. You would see the shape of a club altering under each manager.

Look at Chelsea. Under Mourinho they played 433, they had attacking proficency, a solid back four and he inspired them to win back-to-back titles. He gave them confidence and they reaped the rewards on the pitch, he made players with real PA into world-class players (Terry, Lampard).

Under Grant they changed their shape, but not their players, they changed their mentality and focussed more on a counter-attacking style. They weren't as solid at the back as they were under Mourinho and they lost a lot of confidence. They eventually picked things up but they were a vastly different team to that under Mourinho - even though the team was nigh on identical (swapping Robben for Malouda and the purchase of Anelka).

Under Scolari they brought in Deco and played more though the middle. They passed the ball better and they seemed quietly confident (still not as content as they were under Mourinho), eventually though Scolari's vision fell apart, things didn't go as well as they'd have liked and he was sacked.

Now they've got Ancelotti and it's still 80% the same team as Mourinho's but you know they will play differently because Ancelotti will have a different impact on them as did the other managers. This isn't touched on in the game and it does have a massive effect on the way the game plays out over time.

- with a simple statistic for AI managers you could really change the entire feel of the game. This FA stat could make or break an AI manager at any club, you'd not know how it would work. If you see a manager move club in FM you know that nothing different will change about that team, they'll keep the same formation and they'll go on a spending spree.

If you add FA into the mix you have the potential to make every game on FM unique because Aguero could move to Arsenal, work under Wenger and become the greatest player on FM. On the other hand he could stay at Atletico and only mildly improve or move to AC Milan (where Leonardo is a young, inexperienced coach) and start to lose his abilities a little.

The other bonus about this idea is that you could as a manager integrate your personality into FM. In FM the AI managers have set personalities but human managers have dynamic personalities - you pretty much know what not to do in the game so you change your actual persona as not to negatively affect the game for yourself or your club.

If you were able to add some of your traits when making a manager you could pick your FA stat (ie, works well with youngsters or has a friendly persona) and that would embed your own image and own real-life personality into every team you manage. Not only that, your team could respond well to you or not depending on your own personality and that would add another dimension to the game where you can sometimes have issues with certain players because (for example your stats sway you more towards youngsters and the older players are a little upset about being frozen out).

The possiblities for this are endless and with a small addition to the coding you could really rejuvinate the experience of this game.

Adding features like media conferences is only going to take the game in a repetive direction, where as adding something like this makes every game you play completely unique and every club you manage is a new experience because you'd not know how the team would take to you. Right now who you manage has no impact on the game, you can manage any team who are mid-level and make them world-beaters because you know all the -PA players in the game.

Just my thought's on the matter, what do you think about it?

Herr... Managers in the game already have an impact in, perhaps, all the levels you discussed above! For instance:

- Managers preferred tactics are used by teams, not the team preferred tactics.

- Managers already have a "motivation" attribute.

- Managers already have a "working with youngsters" attribute.

Perhaps managers influence should be bigger than it is currently, I cannot really say I disagree with you on that, but most of the building blocks for that are already in the game, just perhaps not as relevant to the ME/transfers system as they should be. I disagree though, if you are hinting that there should be a "players play well under this manager" attribute, or FA if that is what you want to call it - it would be a cop-out, and a simplification of the more realistic set of attributes currently given to managers.

Nice op. I think a 'P' needs to replace 'W' in some sort of context if you get my drift! It made me laugh alot!!!

I never even thought about this but it is very interesting and for me does have alot of potential. I think that the attributes that we have are a bit pointless to be honest and don't have much bearing on the game. E.g. hands on approach - this will change if you attend or do not attend press conferences - not too great for me. I think our achievements need to make our attributes better and thus be able to do things to a better degree in the game or worse!

E.g. the players always say I have indiscipline even though I seem to be quite harsh on my players and some players go to the media when unhappy and I get angry (in game!) and tell them to man up! So maybe we should have a level of disciline like other managers.

And I like the idea about youth players and the reputation of managers that seem to really get the best out of youth players. E.g. we could have a youth stat that could change based on how many home grown players had come through the ranks. Then our attribute for working with youngsters could improve. The higher the rating the higher the development (in theory) of the youth players - obviously this would take time to get a very hight stat in this.

There could also be the ability to pro-long older players a bit like Milan, Maldini (more due to the legend that he is but still) so when players hit 30-33 then their stats dont fall so quickly and are still at the top of their game untill 33 as opposed to a bit earlier. Same stas as the above the higher the stat the more likely the players won't be over the hill so quickly.

Ability to attract the top players in the world. Even set as sunday league footballer- at a great team you can still get the best players in the world- due to the reputation of the player but many players join a club becasue of the 'gaffer'. So a manager could have the ability to attract the very best players or maybe have a rating of attracting players from certain countries, or something along those lines - not sure about this one or just your nationality has more chance of attracting these players to your club.

Another maybe reputation in the game has alot more standing than it currently does as at the moment your reputation changes only in writing and does not reallt mean much or has noe effect in the game. E.g. once world class players have so much respect/admiration they never say no i won't learn a new move, never say a fine is harsh, never say you lack indiscipline, and so your reputation change actually has some real implications and vise versa if you have a poor reputation.

There could be loads more I think.

So maybe at the start of the game there is a set of different types of managers with given stats that have some high, medium and low or maybe all low and we have to improve all of these aspects of our own game. Just seems that there is little interaction in side the game between ourselves as the manager and the players/club the relationship seems to be a bit poor in terms of there are no reality or improvement and actually or standing in the game can have an effect as at the moment are only effect is outside the game from our real life brains if that makes any sense!

Basically us as the managers should have more stats so we become more part of the game set up and are really in the game to such an extent that out attributes really do matter. E'g' scouts with P.A and P.P are very important and have big consquences, and like that our stats should have a similar weighting!

I'm with lance - the managerial attributes are already there but are under-utilized. I've been hoping SI will add much more emphasis to the AI managers' personalities and preferences for some time. Maybe FM11?

To touch on the points raised -

There is a lot of the attributes in place but they're not flexible. They barely have an impact in some cases (other than the change of digits in your profile).

What I'm suggesting is that a manager has the ability to impact on his team. The way things are now, is that the reputation of the club dictates things more than the manager.

Mourinho's teams defend well because of his tactics - not because he has some magic ability to make defenders play better.

As others have pointed out, these things are already in the game. They just need to be given more weight.

To touch on the points raised -

A - There is a lot of the attributes in place but they're not flexible. They barely have an impact in some cases (other than the change of digits in your profile).

B - What I'm suggesting is that a manager has the ability to impact on his team. The way things are now, is that the reputation of the club dictates things more than the manager.

A - Not sure I want them to have more of an imapct, they are based on how we play the game, which is the way it should be. We can choose how we appraoch situations, we can change with time and I don't think we should be limited or swayed because of attributes that mean too much and could be defined by situations at previous clubs.

B - In certain regards that's how it should be. Other than preset formations, i'm not sure what could be changed.

Mourinho's teams defend well because of his tactics - not because he has some magic ability to make defenders play better.

As others have pointed out, these things are already in the game. They just need to be given more weight.

True. However, his charisma inispires his players - it's Mourinho's one big selling point. That is true with a lot of great managers.

Shouldn't they have key traits that impact their teams? IE: A Wenger team would be youth orientated. How great would it be to see him leave Arsenal for someone like Real Madrid and focus on bringing in his own team of young stars? If he was at Real Madrid in FM10, he'd have no impact at all. It'd just be Real Madrid with Wenger at the helm, a few new siginings here and there.

What I'm proposing is that we have something that makes every manager and their team special. Wenger going to Real Madrid (in FM11 with DA&FA integrated), taking over the team and completely rebuilding it in his mould would be much more realistic and much more exciting for the game.

A game which can provide twists and turns is something that you'd never put down. If they got that into FM it'd be the perfect game.

A - Not sure I want them to have more of an imapct, they are based on how we play the game, which is the way it should be. We can choose how we appraoch situations, we can change with time and I don't think we should be limited or swayed because of attributes that mean too much and could be defined by situations at previous clubs.

B - In certain regards that's how it should be. Other than preset formations, i'm not sure what could be changed.

You'd not need to be limited to that.

Look at FMLive, you have set traits but you can build your profile and work on your management skills.

I have to admit, this wasn't based on FML but you could take elements like that from FML to make FM even better as a game and to build on the brand.