What I'd hope to see in future FM developments..

wonder if i'm worth the pinch of salt to say the following stuff, but any how.. please pardon my selfindulgment

1) Being a manager is more than just buying and playing matches.

Being a devoted fan of SI since my very first PC ('bout 10 yrs ago), FM has undoubtedly been the most utilized program, however, i've come to realize that i spend most of my time and energy during the transfer season and the match day. hence i wonder, if the game should in fact be guided towards a more realistic, day-to-day basis model, whereby training, scouting and administrative works could be better utilized?

2) Players

Probably the most heated debate on this section. i however, take the stand over the no visible stats side. i believe, less stats = more room for users to fantasize as managers, we would be more empowered to affect the players, evaluate and grade them through our own eyes, and feel the fulfillment and embarrasement when overachievers and flops appear. after a decade of fm-gaming, i find my playing strategies are very much of a routine; sign the right players (16s in stats) deploy the right tactics.. i feel more like a god than manager, it's like with only my eyes and a slide of the screen, i could tell all the humanly qualities of a person.

if we take a closer look at the stats, they're merely the FM scouting dept's opinions on a player expressed through digits, although we have to acknowledge their professionalism and effort, i wonder if it would be more challenging if they could give us a (gaming) world where only values and performances are digitalized, and if want to really get to know a player, we have to make an effort to, say watch his games, or talk to them. if you want to know who's the fastest striker in the league, watch them run! (and not by setting your search filter to pace 20 acce 20 and realize only agbonlonhar's on it), plus, it'd also make gamers fall in to a false pretense that gabby's universally the paciest forward in the game regardless of occasions, who knows if an uncomfy pair of boots may compromise his speed during a match or two! i guess what i'm saying is that stats are absolute and rigid, players are not. who knows if i sugar up carragher a little, he might even consider rejoining the national team! oh wait, he did..

3) more AI please.. more more more..

a typical FM game screen compromises of a page with tons of links to various places, but from experience, i've never frequented 75% of them.. i wonder if the game could be reformulated to better assist gamers to get to where they want to (without the excessive clicking and search&locating)?

say i'm at my club's home page and i wonder who're the best left back in south america, the easiest i could think of is to go to scouting screen, set filter, and set filter, and set filter, and set filter, and browse.. and click, and scout player, and browse, and click and scout player.. wait for reports, compare reports, toss a coin, then choose one.

gee, life would be much easier if i could just tell my assistant the exact same sentence i wrote above and he'd trigger the rest.. with technologies today, i dont think that'd be hard to accomplish, eh, my dearest oliver brothers?

these are my thoughts, with sincerity and gravity, no pun or mockery intended. cheerio~

I dont wanna be one of 'those' people but i think this should go in the FM11/future versions thread.

I think it's fine in it's own thread as it leaves plenty of room for discussion

Your second suggestion has been suggestion before and I think you're taking it from one extreme to the other. I think the attirbutes system has to remain in place because people simply don't have the sort of time that watching every transfer target would require. The middle ground and best option for me would be to place more emphasis on scouting, making it harder to see those attributes.

1) The problem with most day-to-day activities of most football managers aren't all that interesting and difficult to implement. (just have a look at press conferences) And with an equal or greater amount of players just wanting to coast through seasons, focusing solely on the matches, SI have a hard time satisfying both types of player. Although if they find a way to implement training and make it interesting and varied (press conferences are engaging and fun, for the first 10-20 matches, but they tend to get boring and predictable after that), I'm all for it.

2) If you look closely enough at your players, you notice that the stats they are supposed to have are not set in stone. The hidden stats also play a huge part in their performance. I cannot count the times that some average noone whom my coaches kept telling me to get rid of managed to play better than half of my teams so called 'stars'.

For example, I've heard that consistency (which is the hidden attricbute with the clearest link to performance) decides the chance of a player playing to his full ability during a match. So a player with low consistency will perform on average like a player at 70% of his ability (but with high consistency). What it all comes down to then is the stats representing how good he is in each area. This vaguely responds to you knowing he's good at crossing and a fast runner, but he won't be as good a crosser or as fast a runner each match.

Another extreme example are idiot players from Kipfisz's bandits thread (http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php?t=112059). These are players with huge amounts of ability and potential, who, due to their atrocious hidden stats, will never amount to anything other than a rotation player at a subtop team.

So in order to make great signings you will need to scout the player extensively to get scout reports telling you of a players personality and consistency in detail (and even then, scouts are known to get things wrong on occasion), look at his average rating and form to determine his consistency among other things.

Of course, you can ignore all that and just go on stats, and chances are that your best player stat wise, IS your best player. But there's also a chance that your newly signed star will underperform massively due to difficulties adapting to the squad, dips in form, not being motivated, etc.

Long story short, stats aren't as deterministic as most of us think. I believe the current system with hidden and visible stats is a nice trade-off between being able to judge a player quickly, and making every judgement a guess.

I do agree with Neji that attributes of unscouted players are way too easy to unlock, and more scouting should be necessary.

3) I believe this is already in the game. Simply send a scout to south america and have him scout left backs. The problem most people have with this is the amount of time needed for the scout to compile his list. Since I play all my games based on Llama rules, I really couldn't care less about player search screens etc. But I do agree that some things still require a lot of unnecessary clicking.

Great post

1) I agree to some extent. There is certainly some room left to improve what is to be done in between matches during a season. Yet, the current state is also part of the FM experience. If it became necessary to have all the hassle done at any time, then FM might become a very tiring experience.

2) I wholeheartedly disagree. I think that every manager irl is able to give exact attribute values to his players after being at charge for a short time at least. Yet, it may be quickly done for SI to create this as an option. As long as that is optional and doesn't take away too much coding time from other issues then I would not mind at all to see it introduced to FM11.

3) More and better AI is surely worked on constantly In terms of usability FM10 was a great step forward and I'm sure SI will strive to improve that part further anyway.

I think it's fine in it's own thread as it leaves plenty of room for discussion

Your second suggestion has been suggestion before and I think you're taking it from one extreme to the other. I think the attirbutes system has to remain in place because people simply don't have the sort of time that watching every transfer target would require. The middle ground and best option for me would be to place more emphasis on scouting, making it harder to see those attributes.

i think you can only see the true attributes of your own player if they played 5 matches ++ under your control.

and you can only see the attributes of other club's players if you actually go watch the player play 5 times++ or get a scout to do it for you ( using a scout wont give you the exact attributes result, various with the ability of the scout. so if you choose to do it on your own, you get the exact result.)

I think it's fine in it's own thread as it leaves plenty of room for discussion

Your second suggestion has been suggestion before and I think you're taking it from one extreme to the other. I think the attirbutes system has to remain in place because people simply don't have the sort of time that watching every transfer target would require. The middle ground and best option for me would be to place more emphasis on scouting, making it harder to see those attributes.

i feel you neji, under the current game setting, it is definitely a tragedy to manually skim through players manually. but just like what i'd mentioned, these changes should only come along under the circumstances that FM team vastly advance it's gaming structure, making the manager experience more realistic.

just imagine this, say you're a manager of club X, around you are not just avatars and stats of staff and players, but actual interactive AIs, and your job's more or less orchestrate this group of individuals, how fun would that be right!

1) The problem with most day-to-day activities of most football managers aren't all that interesting and difficult to implement. (just have a look at press conferences) And with an equal or greater amount of players just wanting to coast through seasons, focusing solely on the matches, SI have a hard time satisfying both types of player. Although if they find a way to implement training and make it interesting and varied (press conferences are engaging and fun, for the first 10-20 matches, but they tend to get boring and predictable after that), I'm all for it.

2) If you look closely enough at your players, you notice that the stats they are supposed to have are not set in stone. The hidden stats also play a huge part in their performance. I cannot count the times that some average noone whom my coaches kept telling me to get rid of managed to play better than half of my teams so called 'stars'.

For example, I've heard that consistency (which is the hidden attricbute with the clearest link to performance) decides the chance of a player playing to his full ability during a match. So a player with low consistency will perform on average like a player at 70% of his ability (but with high consistency). What it all comes down to then is the stats representing how good he is in each area. This vaguely responds to you knowing he's good at crossing and a fast runner, but he won't be as good a crosser or as fast a runner each match.

Another extreme example are idiot players from Kipfisz's bandits thread (http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php?t=112059). These are players with huge amounts of ability and potential, who, due to their atrocious hidden stats, will never amount to anything other than a rotation player at a subtop team.

So in order to make great signings you will need to scout the player extensively to get scout reports telling you of a players personality and consistency in detail (and even then, scouts are known to get things wrong on occasion), look at his average rating and form to determine his consistency among other things.

Of course, you can ignore all that and just go on stats, and chances are that your best player stat wise, IS your best player. But there's also a chance that your newly signed star will underperform massively due to difficulties adapting to the squad, dips in form, not being motivated, etc.

Long story short, stats aren't as deterministic as most of us think. I believe the current system with hidden and visible stats is a nice trade-off between being able to judge a player quickly, and making every judgement a guess.

I do agree with Neji that attributes of unscouted players are way too easy to unlock, and more scouting should be necessary.

3) I believe this is already in the game. Simply send a scout to south america and have him scout left backs. The problem most people have with this is the amount of time needed for the scout to compile his list. Since I play all my games based on Llama rules, I really couldn't care less about player search screens etc. But I do agree that some things still require a lot of unnecessary clicking.

thank you v much for your time and thoughts!

1)

i am in full support of your opinion. but from my pov, this mundane and frustrating link of the game is actually something we should actually be cheerful about. it may not be as fulfilling as it seems presently, but it certainly opened up a whole new dimension of possibilites. picture the future, when press conf becomes as real as it maybe, what you'd be facing now maybe the pressure of one freudian slip, or a paraphrased comment. of course, such complexity may only reveal itself throughtime and technology. lest we have a hope!

2)

again, i'd be lying if i say i've never touched fmrte or fmscout, but dont you want to experience these numbers in a more dynamic and reallife fashion? say from the words of a coaching staff, or an invigilated match yourself? i personally feel rather distant from a player as he isnt a player but a combination of digits and stats, hence i'd crave for a chance for the game to progress to a level of sophistication whereby i'd feel like i'm actually managing a real gang of lads!

3)

haha, again, back to the technology thesis, i'd like to feel like my staff meetings to be really a conference amongst highly intuitive AIs rather than a column of reccomendations form me to click on

Great post

1) I agree to some extent. There is certainly some room left to improve what is to be done in between matches during a season. Yet, the current state is also part of the FM experience. If it became necessary to have all the hassle done at any time, then FM might become a very tiring experience.

2) I wholeheartedly disagree. I think that every manager irl is able to give exact attribute values to his players after being at charge for a short time at least. Yet, it may be quickly done for SI to create this as an option. As long as that is optional and doesn't take away too much coding time from other issues then I would not mind at all to see it introduced to FM11.

3) More and better AI is surely worked on constantly In terms of usability FM10 was a great step forward and I'm sure SI will strive to improve that part further anyway.

thank you jay for then compliment

1)

this is exactly what i expect of the diligent fm team, to perfect the game for the future

2)

may i, with the most humble stature, contrast your pov?

no arguments there that the manager knows the team and players inside out. in fact, the stats book managers hold are million times more sophisticated than the ones we see. i however, only brought up this idea in hope to see a revolutionized fm gaming experience, whereby players express themselves intuitively and interactively, rather than a one way traffic (i mean you see them, they dont give **** who you are, technically)

3)

WORD!!

I'd say the first thing that needs to be improved is player interaction (i've put this because it links my points about what you've suggested)

1) I think there does need to be more day-to-day managerial things but this should be interacting with your players, and more training options such as practicing certain corner kick routines, long throws etc but if you didnt want to do this then just set your assistant manager to take training just as you can now for press conferences

2) there could be an option within preferences that allow all stats to be visible or invisible gives gamers the option, although I think for more realism the best way could be that your scouts become more involved and when you when scout a player the scout basically marks the player out of 20 for each attribute and each scout will come back with results and the better the scout the more accurate the results this way you still get to find out how good a player he is but still ultimately the decision lays with you as the scout will not be 100% accurate and not until around a year after you've signed them do you get to see the real stats or if you've chosen the invisible stats option then you'll never get to see but thats up to you of course!!!

3) again if there was more player interactions then there would also be more (and better) staff interaction

just imagine this, say you're a manager of club X, around you are not just avatars and stats of staff and players, but actual interactive AIs, and your job's more or less orchestrate this group of individuals, how fun would that be right!

That sounds great to be honest but it also sounds like a totally different game.

I would like to see a more rpg feel to the game so like instead of just player prefer moves maybe you could give players certain cards that would improve certain areas of thier game say a player can be a super-sub, or a big game player, dead ball specialist and some that improve some stats and harm others like a flair/greedy player

When you win competitions or acheive certain results you could earn more cards to give to your players Ime sure alex ferguson has certain ways to motivate his players that others don't so this could be somewhat realistic and it would add more longevity to the game as you would always be trying to get certain cards

Basicly i just want a way to improve certain key stats of players that don't have them eg improve a player with 10 workrate up to 14 wether through intensive training or asking the player to focus on this over a period of time...the regens seem to be mising some key stats noticibly central defenders having 5 strength and otherwise decent stats so this could be one way around it

That's covered in training, Johnjo. You can't boost an attribute by a massive amount but you can certainly make a difference with the right training. As for cards, I don't think that would work with FM as it's a simulation.

The regens missing good attributes is something that should be fixed, rather than papered over with another system to make it right.

For 2): This relies on an assumption that one is able to "bind" a virtual player to some set of attributes. For example, if I see Cristiano Ronaldo in-game I know he is a winger who can play up front, is flairish, is very good at dribbling and finishing and is one of the best players in the world. It is much harder, unfortunately, to do this for regens or players you don't know. In addition the game never immerses you in an atmosphere of news and knowledge like real-life - it is difficult to immediately find out the best midfielders in the world, for example, but you could easily round off a list of plausibly-best midfielders in real-life.

We implicitly assign a ranking or number to a player's ability in our minds - we know instinctively that Ronaldo is a better dribbler than Wright-Phillips who is better at dribbling than Emile Heskey, and implicitly we assign some value for it in our heads, even if we don't know what number it is. This is what the numbers are for and in some ways yes, it is realistic.

Although I understand where the OP is coming from with regards to attributes, wouldn't the most realistic thing be to use graphical attributes and the polygon? That way you know just from looking at those two things that Drogba's main strength is his ability in the air, that he is a little better in the air than John Terry (you wouldn't know exactly how much better) and that he much better in the air than, say, Jermaine Defoe.

thank you jay for then compliment

2)

may i, with the most humble stature, contrast your pov?

no arguments there that the manager knows the team and players inside out. in fact, the stats book managers hold are million times more sophisticated than the ones we see. i however, only brought up this idea in hope to see a revolutionized fm gaming experience, whereby players express themselves intuitively and interactively, rather than a one way traffic (i mean you see them, they dont give **** who you are, technically)

As I said, I'd be happy to have this in the game as long as it's optional and doesn't take a lot of coding time away from things which I regards as more important.

For 2): This relies on an assumption that one is able to "bind" a virtual player to some set of attributes. For example, if I see Cristiano Ronaldo in-game I know he is a winger who can play up front, is flairish, is very good at dribbling and finishing and is one of the best players in the world. It is much harder, unfortunately, to do this for regens or players you don't know. In addition the game never immerses you in an atmosphere of news and knowledge like real-life - it is difficult to immediately find out the best midfielders in the world, for example, but you could easily round off a list of plausibly-best midfielders in real-life.

We implicitly assign a ranking or number to a player's ability in our minds - we know instinctively that Ronaldo is a better dribbler than Wright-Phillips who is better at dribbling than Emile Heskey, and implicitly we assign some value for it in our heads, even if we don't know what number it is. This is what the numbers are for and in some ways yes, it is realistic.

thank you for your explanation and elaboration. your point is indeed very enlightening and very reasonable.

i guess the reason i failed to see what you've seen is probably due to the reason in my lack of interest when the game progresses too far into the future. and my reasons for this personal preference are as such:

1) the game loses it's charm (to me, and me only) when superstars are replaced by regens, as the satisfaction between managing messi and some regen are different. for messi, i could relate to him irl, and feel a sense of achievement when he performs. as for a regen, there's always a part of me telling me that it's nothing but a generated character with absolutely no chance of reality.

2) hence to my second point, i tend to savor my days during the first decade of the game more than the next few. and thus from my point of view, in contrast to spending months taking the game 50 years into the future, i would rather spend the time living day by day as a manager. but of course, provided the daily gaming method is both diverse and challenging.

i guess what i'm trying to say is that the current game is rather blend and repetitive in its gaming structure and a little bit more diversity wouldve been lovely

thank you for your explanation and elaboration. your point is indeed very enlightening and very reasonable.

i guess the reason i failed to see what you've seen is probably due to the reason in my lack of interest when the game progresses too far into the future. and my reasons for this personal preference are as such:

1) the game loses it's charm (to me, and me only) when superstars are replaced by regens, as the satisfaction between managing messi and some regen are different. for messi, i could relate to him irl, and feel a sense of achievement when he performs. as for a regen, there's always a part of me telling me that it's nothing but a generated character with absolutely no chance of reality.

2) hence to my second point, i tend to savor my days during the first decade of the game more than the next few. and thus from my point of view, in contrast to spending months taking the game 50 years into the future, i would rather spend the time living day by day as a manager. but of course, provided the daily gaming method is both diverse and challenging.

i guess what i'm trying to say is that the current game is rather blend and repetitive in its gaming structure and a little bit more diversity wouldve been lovely

So, you're basically complaining that the games changes too much (with regens) but then you say you want more diversity?

On the issue of attributes, one suggestion I like is on first scouting a player, being able to see a 'range' for each attribute, depending on a number of factors (scout attributes, time on pitch, comparative quality of opposition etc). So if you send your scout to see a player who only gets a 15 minute run out, he could say 'XXX won a few headers, he could be decent in the air (stat range 12-16), I only got to seem him take one shot at goal, but it was good, he seemed composed, so I think he could be a decent finisher (finishing 10+). However, I think we'll need to see the lad on a couple of other occasions to really judge him.' And then the more scouting you do, or the better your scout is, you'll learn a player's exact attributes more quickly.

i believe, less stats = more room for users to fantasize as managers, we would be more empowered to affect the players, evaluate and grade them through our own eyes, and feel the fulfillment and embarrasement when overachievers and flops appear. after a decade of fm-gaming, i find my playing strategies are very much of a routine; sign the right players (16s in stats) deploy the right tactics..

Then dont look at the attributes. You can still play in a "realistic" fashion...when your scout comes with a suggestion, watch the player's games before you sign instead of just looking at the attributes...so you are happy and the guy wanting attribute too is happy...

On the issue of attributes, one suggestion I like is on first scouting a player, being able to see a 'range' for each attribute, depending on a number of factors (scout attributes, time on pitch, comparative quality of opposition etc). So if you send your scout to see a player who only gets a 15 minute run out, he could say 'XXX won a few headers, he could be decent in the air (stat range 12-16), I only got to seem him take one shot at goal, but it was good, he seemed composed, so I think he could be a decent finisher (finishing 10+). However, I think we'll need to see the lad on a couple of other occasions to really judge him.' And then the more scouting you do, or the better your scout is, you'll learn a player's exact attributes more quickly.

That has been suggested before and I think it's a very good suggestion, but I would imagine it would make file sizes go through the roof because the game would need to store how much every manager knows about every player. Right now that works on a basic level so it doesn't take up much space.

So, you're basically complaining that the games changes too much (with regens) but then you say you want more diversity?

lol.. definitely not, regens are a necessity for the game to function, what i'm merely suggesting is that, due to the current gaming model, regens replaces the real players' importance too soon, and the only reason i could think of is that the game advances too fast chronologically. thus i'm proposing for the gaming speed to slow down, through introducing new elements into the game, which would in turn, also make the game more realistic.

just think of the really cool games like crysis, halo etc, they've achieved their purpose of bringing reality of killing to players both visually and through interaction interface, i'm just hoping SI would be kind enough, with the advancement of technology, bring the reality of manager's life and job to users, as thus far (after 10 years of gameplay) i felt that nothing concrete has evolved as we're still playing with the same gaming model..

Then dont look at the attributes. You can still play in a "realistic" fashion...when your scout comes with a suggestion, watch the player's games before you sign instead of just looking at the attributes...so you are happy and the guy wanting attribute too is happy...

lol, for now, that does sound like a plan..