Why why why why why why why why why why why why why!?!?!?!?!?

Why, just WHY will my Assisstant NOT deal with contract renewals?? Just about ALL of my staff's (I have a lot of coaches!) contracts are about to expire, it will probably take me about 20 minutes to go through and renew them all! In team settings I have my Ass Man "do" this for me, precisely because of this, yet he hasnt done it. Is this a bug? Are we likely to see the same thing in FM12??

I think he will only renew the contracts for players, not staff. I may be wrong though.

Assistant will deal with players, not coaches. Otherwise he would probably put himself on 200k a week!

I too am pretty frustrated that my assistant doesn't handle contracts. Often I find that I have to do the work, if I left my assistant was left to do it, I'd have lost half my squad! I don't mind too much as long as the assistant makes some sort of effort.

Ok, but there are 5 players, 3 first team who's contracts are about to expire. Why'd he miss them? Also, why is it up to me and not the board to deal with staff? Im staff and they dealt with me!

Maybe he doesn't think they are worth keeping or is unwilling to pay what they want.

why cant you do the job yourself? staff contracts are much easier than player contracts. all you do is offer a wage and an expiry date.

The current GUI for offering contracts is diabolical. The least favourite part of the game for me.

It's "Right Cick">"Transfers and Contracts">"Offer New Contract">"Reset to Current Contract">"Offer">"They want a bit more">"Accept"

7 Steps per Coach.

Add 20 staff (ass man, coaches, physios, scouts) - and this becomes 140 clicks to do something that should be easier.

Again, it's just the GUI in the game which is farcical at best in terms of the amount of times you need to click through things to get things done.

It could be simplified by adding tick boxes (which they've done for FM12 in some cases ) Not sure about contract renewals though but I see it as:

Offer Contract:

[All] [All]

[Y] [N] Coach 1 (lists best stats)

[Y] [N] Coach 2 (lists best stats)

[Y] [N] Coach 3 (lists best stats)

[Y] [N] Coach 4 (lists best stats)

[Y] [N] Coach 5 (lists best stats)

[Y] [N] Coach 6 (lists best stats)

[Y] [N] Coach 7 (lists best stats)

[Y] [N] Coach 8 (lists best stats)

[Y] [N] Youth Coach 1 (lists best stats)

[Y] [N] Youth Coach 2 (lists best stats)

[Y] [N] Youth Coach 3 (lists best stats)

[Y] [N] Youth Coach 4 (lists best stats)

[Y] [N] Youth Coach 5 (lists best stats)

[Y] [N] Youth Coach 6 (lists best stats)

[Y] [N] Youth Coach 7 (lists best stats)

[Y] [N] Youth Coach 8 (lists best stats)

[Y] [N] Scout 1 (lists best stats)

[Y] [N] Scout 2 (lists best stats)

[Y] [N] Scout 3 (lists best stats)

[Y] [N] Scout 4 (lists best stats)

[Y] [N] Scout 5 (lists best stats)

[Y] [N] Scout 6 (lists best stats)

[Y] [N] Scout 7 (lists best stats)

[Y] [N] Scout 8 (lists best stats)

[Y] [N] Physio 1 (lists best stats)

[Y] [N] Physio 2 (lists best stats)

[Y] [N] Physio 3 (lists best stats)

Then a rolling screen going from staff to staff as you bang out a deal.

7 clicks per staff member is not that bad, considering you probably only have to do it once every 4 years, and not all together. i find I offer coaches new deals whenever another club tries to poach them, so when you get the 6 month warning there are only 5 or 6 staff to deal with. Just do 2 of them, then leave the others until the 3 month or 1 month warning. This way all your clicking is spread out over the season and feels less of a chore.

Yeh 7 clicks per staff member isn't that bad.

But it could be done in 3. Cutting the time spent doing this by more than half.

It's just poor GUI. That's all. It's annoying at the most.

I'm a great advocate of less clicks to get you places. I go crazy and get fed up with websites that I have to click through more than 3 links to get where I needed. It's pretty standard nowadays in that regard.

It can be fixed with a better UI.

7 clicks per staff member is not that bad, considering you probably only have to do it once every 4 years, and not all together. i find I offer coaches new deals whenever another club tries to poach them, so when you get the 6 month warning there are only 5 or 6 staff to deal with. Just do 2 of them, then leave the others until the 3 month or 1 month warning. This way all your clicking is spread out over the season and feels less of a chore.

And what happens if you miss the news item about your coach being approached? Happens all the time cos its buried in about 30 other news items that are of no interest to me whatsoever.

I hate this part of the game too. My assistant manager is useless at handling contracts. I have a big squad and every season I have to negotiate about 15-20 player contracts 5-10 staff contracts on the same day. It takes bloody ages!!!

this is why i make sure i stagger my backroom staffs contracts.

so lets say, in year 3, 7 of my staff require contract renewals. instead of giving all of them 4 year contracts, i will give some 4 years, others 2 years and others 5 years - or whatever the increments are. makes it easier and isn't exactly difficult to implement.

Coaches should have to give you notice, like any other job. Or at least make you aware they want a new contract to stay.

So annoying.

And what happens if you miss the news item about your coach being approached? Happens all the time cos its buried in about 30 other news items that are of no interest to me whatsoever.

Yeah, this bit infuriates me. If you happen to click continue without reading all your news and skip to the next day, you can lose him without getting chance to counter-offer.

This kind of thing should at least have a 'Must Respond' button, where you can choose to either offer a new contract or perhaps just ask him if he wants to stay, or choose to do nothing.

this is why i make sure i stagger my backroom staffs contracts.

so lets say, in year 3, 7 of my staff require contract renewals. instead of giving all of them 4 year contracts, i will give some 4 years, others 2 years and others 5 years - or whatever the increments are. makes it easier and isn't exactly difficult to implement.

That's an OK workaround to the problem. But the problem is still there. You have to spend the same amount of time on it, its just not all at once. I would prefer if I didn't have to deal with the problem at all

The GUI in the game has become a lot worse since they started working with this usability studies company.

Pretty sure the company is Called Troll's Usability Research.

The best one was the removal of the highlight speed slider as it "confused people", forcing the player to constantly fiddle with the match speed slider. Usability my shiny behind.

For those complaining, if you can't be bothered to do the contracts yourself then you can't complain at how the game handles them.

There ought to be rolling contracts for staff, with a wage % increase so you can start at 5% and go upto 25% or something on the options depending on the staff and how important they are to you. Could be a 1 year rolling contract, or 5 year and it gives flexibility and the ease of not fussing yourself, when I get my teams to the very top I will find I have 20 or more scouts, then I will fill up every coach slot I can so that my youngsters and senior players have the best coaching and so that no schedule is any more demanding than 'light' for the coaches. In short, this means with physios and everything else bundled in its quite easily to have somewhere between 35 - 45 staff. Having to renew that many contracts in one batch is incredibly annoying.

For those complaining, if you can't be bothered to do the contracts yourself then you can't complain at how the game handles them.

The game doesn't handle them.

Am I allowed to complain about that?

For those complaining, if you can't be bothered to do the contracts yourself then you can't complain at how the game handles them.

It's not that we're not bothered with it. It's just bothersome. It could be done a lot cleaner and simpler with a better UI.

Yeah, this bit infuriates me. If you happen to click continue without reading all your news and skip to the next day, you can lose him without getting chance to counter-offer.

Which is even more annoying because staff will move on 100% of the time. So the news item basically reads "Staff x will leave if you don't offer them a new contract now. Offer yes/no?"

The game doesn't handle them.

Am I allowed to complain about that?

If you know the game doesn't do it right then do it yourself then.

BTW, what is also annoying is that regardless of what club you take over at any point in the game, you will have to throw out most of the staff already there due to sheer uselessness!

I mean, I took control of At.Madrid recently (newest database) and I had to fire -everyone- there. How realistic is it that one of the biggest clubs in one of the biggest leagues in the world has a staff entirely consisting of half-amateurs?

If you know the game doesn't do it right then do it yourself then.

Brilliant solution.