What percentage of SI's work should go into the Match Engine?

Every year we have the same discussion/joy/whinging about what has been improved and what hasn't. I thought it would be interesting to give SI some feedback on how people feel about the question above!

It's a pretty pointless question, without knowing what time they already spend on it, or what the minimum time required on this or other aspects of the game are.

sorry but its a terrible question, and the poll will be completely meaning less to SI they will not be interested in the result at all, they know how to divide up their time to the best of their abilities.

The poll also shows you dont know how the game is made, they will never spend 100% of their time on the ME, there is a team that works 100% on the ME, so really you already have your answer.

It's a totally pointless question because there is a match engine team and they spend 100% of their time on the ME, no point in a GUI coder even getting near it:D

They also get additional help from associate studios and external experts in some specific areas, so it's fair to say they spend more than 100% of their time on it;)

ME is the most important part of FM' for me, so I want them to work on it the most.

God- for the pedantic among you:

What % of resources should SI use on Match Engine development/testing etc?

God- for the pedantic among you:

What % of resources should SI use on Match Engine development/testing etc?

What do they currently use?? Tell us this, and maybe we can answer. Right now it's impossible unless you know the inner workings of SI.

God- for the pedantic among you:

What % of resources should SI use on Match Engine development/testing etc?

Let the project manager(s) figure out how best to divide their resources to build the overall product. They know their resources better than any of us, in addition to the amount of effort required, what needs to be done and what has been done already.

Let us customers worry about giving them feature requests.

God- for the pedantic among you:

What % of resources should SI use on Match Engine development/testing etc?

What do they currently use?

why is this thread still open?

God- for the pedantic among you:

What % of resources should SI use on Match Engine development/testing etc?

The percentage they feel is appropriate and most efficient?

I'm an accountant so I know sod all about software development.

I think they should concentrate heavily on it. To quantify that as a percentage is not achievable as I don't have facts.

But I suspect they concentrate on it heavily anyway. They only reason they brought in the 3D (and I assume this is what you mean by ME) is that they would only do it if it worked properly. So they are very concerned about it working better.

There have been significant improvements announced already.

why is this thread still open?

Because we're still calculating what % of Mod time should be devoted to it.

Surely you are capable of giving an opinion? Nobody is going to think you're a software analyst... the point was just to give SI a feel of how their customers feel about the importance of this issue to them.

I think SI must invest 80% of his power (and money for Sega) on AI and ME.

0 %

The problem, Pauly, is that it's an ambiguous question.

Jesus Christ. You can surely see what it is asking.

How important is the ME to you?

What do they currently use?

Mmmmmm... what's that got to do with this though? The poll isn't asking how much more or less than what is currently used.

I already answered it the best I could - in post 12.

I think it's very important. I would want them to divide the time proportionally with other things that are important too though.

Everybody is giving you the same reply, that's it not an easy percentage to quantify.

I would like to say 70%, but at what cost? If it's a matter that their time is divided on making press conferences less annoying, I'd prefer them to work 50% on ME and put the other 20% towards bettering press conferences, for example.

Mmmmmm... what's that got to do with this though? The poll isn't asking how much more or less than what is currently used.

if your asked to give a percentage it would be helpful to know what they currently put towards the ME.

Anyway its been said, the ME team spend 100% of their time on the ME. they cant really do anymore than that can they?

if your asked to give a percentage it would be helpful to know what they currently put towards the ME.

Anyway its been said, the ME team spend 100% of their time on the ME. they cant really do anymore than that can they?

they could increase the size of the ME team.

obviously the poll and the question don't matter really.

the implicit questions are what is important here (correct me if I'm wrong pauly1616):

are you satisfied with the ME?

and

do you think more work should be done to improve it?

Surely you are capable of giving an opinion? Nobody is going to think you're a software analyst... the point was just to give SI a feel of how their customers feel about the importance of this issue to them.

Besides, this percentage will change all the time depending on what gets done (and not). Some effort can be shared between teams too - common code written by one team can be reused by another - should this count if it was written by the match engine team but reused multiple times?

You are basically asking an extremely vague question that nobody can answer because there is much, much more to resource division than customer desire. For example, if SI have a lot of graphical developers, it is possible that they will skew development towards graphics because that's what gets the best out of their team, rather than shoehorn them into doing something that is not quite their forte.

If you want to know the importance of the match engine to users, then ask precisely that - "How important is the match engine to you?"

ME should drain lot of resources because everything ends over the field. So 100% is too much of course but at least 70-80% yes IMO.

You are basically asking an extremely vague question that nobody can answer because there is much, much more to resource division than customer desire. For example, if SI have a lot of graphical developers, it is possible that they will skew development towards graphics because that's what gets the best out of their team, rather than shoehorn them into doing something that is not quite their forte.

You may be overthinking this though. Still, if that's the case, do you then think they should not have that many in the graphics department because it is less important and their work easily rivals that of football games from 15 years ago, and instead try to get more manpower for the ME team instead?

if your asked to give a percentage it would be helpful to know what they currently put towards the ME.

Anyway its been said, the ME team spend 100% of their time on the ME. they cant really do anymore than that can they?

You seem to see one thing and refuse to entertain any other angle of looking at it. Ok, taking your example of an ME team specialising on the ME: what percentage of their resources should be poured into the ME team?

ME should drain lot of resources because everything ends over the field. So 100% is too much of course but at least 70-80% yes IMO.

There. Is it that hard?

Also, despite what you've expressed you guy did also vote in the poll? There've been 24 votes and about a dozen people posting in this thread...

You seem to see one thing and refuse to entertain any other angle of looking at it. Ok, taking your example of an ME team specialising on the ME: what percentage of their resources should be poured into the ME team?

Whatever resources SI decide is best, the ME is not the only part of the game, putting 100% of their effort into the ME would not improve FM, it would go backwards. They should allocate enough resources so the entire game goes forward at the same time. Thats the only way it will get better.

Even if the question is slightly unclear/malconstructed, it is exceedingly clear what the gist of it is. People are just being difficult.

Put it whatever way you want-

How important is the ME to you relative to other developments?

You may be overthinking this though. Still, if that's the case, do you then think they should not have that many in the graphics department because it is less important and their work easily rivals that of football games from 15 years ago, and instead try to get more manpower for the ME team instead?

In short, "what we want" is restricted by "what we have". But we don't know what the "what we have" is, so we cannot make a precise measurement on "what we want".

You can'tanswer that question with your poll, that is the problem, the question above is easy to answer, the ME is as important as the rest of the game too me, your poll is impossible to answer.

Just pick a number buddy

im not your buddy, guy

hehee... I'm not your guy buddeyyy!

[video=youtube;zuQK6t2Esng]

Lol lol lol

@Pauly I think SI realise the importance of the Match Engine and the 3D view that we as customers place on it, but they also realise the importance of having a good all-round game. It would be pointless if they had a slick ME with 1000's of animations and zero imperfections if the rest of the game that surrounded it was garbage... I doubt many people would buy it just because it looked and worked well if the rest of the game didn't...

They do work hard on the ME though, and they value our input too, not only through the bugs forum already mentioned but through the Match Engine Feedback Thread as well. They're as frustrated as anybody if something doesn't work as intended and, if you highlight the issues properly and upload .pkm's. .jpg's or saves as necessary, they'll work on fixing the problems you find.

How many other studios go as far as SI do to please the customer/perfect their game? I'd bet none...

As for the answer to the original question, as much as they need to/want to.. it get's better every time and v923 is brilliant anyway in the main, I can't wait for FM12's ME!

Adding more people isn't always resulting in a better end product it can just as easilly have the completly opposite effect. I think they know how important people think all the different aspects of the game is and they are hopeully bette than the general public in deciding how to divide their resources to get the best results possible in the end.

A better poll and question would be "What % of time do you feel SI should put into bug fixing?"