ridiculous team meeting reactions

been avoiding the team meetings as they had ridiculous outcomes but read the new patch has fixed that so just had another one.

Unbeaten all season but just had a run of 2 defeats and a draw that have dumped us out of the CL semis - decided to call a team meeting and all I said calmly was things haven't gone our way, lets not let our heads drop, and the entire squad's morale dropped to abysmal - why on earth would anyone react like that, let alone the entire squad? I'm down a favoured personnel for all but 2 of the whole squad so its nothing to do with them not liking me.

Seems to me team meetings are a complete waste of time and when I saw them in FM2012 I was pleased as I thought it was something that needed adding...

This is why I always save before doing any sort of meeting (not updated to 12.1 yet as I've heard too many negative reviews).

Worse is when a player (Mario Balotelli is usually the worst) scores 2 goals and gets an assist or two, and then reckons 'he didn't play that well'. Just accept the praise you ungrateful b*****d!

This feature cannot be used any more.

From what I've seen of team meetings after the patch, they only make things worse for me and must be avoided, because my players' morale gets obliterated. It goes from OK-Good to Abysmal in just one sentence at a meeting for half the squad.

I've done two tests with a couple of months in-game in between where I reloaded to try all the options.

Test 1: All options were bad. With all but one option, morale went to abysmal for half the team, slight green reactions from a few other players.

Test 2: All options were bad. For 3 options I got slight green reactions from around 5 players, but the morale of around 5 players went to abysmal. For 2 options everybody had negative reactions, but not quite to abysmal.

For every single option in both tests, the total morale gain has been strongly negative. Before, I could usually judge which option to choose and get a lift in morale, and if I missed, well at least the morale punishment wasn't too severe. Now there's no chance at all to hit the right option, and the punishment is always severe (based on my limited tests with my team in the situations we have been in, in other scenarios you might get lucky). As far as I'm concerned they just removed the feature from the game.

I agree that team meetings are giving 99% very bad results.

Since last patch players are loaded with pessimism and they just wait the moment you 'touch' them in order to create problems.

I have had success with all but one of my team meetings. The bad one was going well, all players bar one were happy, one player said something negative, and I said that was what I was hoping for, then bam 20 unhappy. They must have thought I was meaning the one bad not the 20 good.

That was the only bad one though, I love team meetings as a free morale booster that almost always works.

Not had a single one that didn't result in abysmal morale since the patch, and I praised them in all but one of them! Silly, would think it definitely needs a look at. I won't be using the feature again until at least the next patch.

From every meeting I have arranged I have got positive reactions.

Team Meetings give me bad reactions as well. It's funny to picture it too, you just enter the room and say: "Guys, keep your heads up!" And everybody just falls into deep depression and hates your guts.

From every meeting I have arranged I have got positive reactions.

Which patch number are you talking about? 12.04? 12.1? 12.1.1?

Test 3: One option actually gave a slight morale boost, 5-6 greens and just a couple of reds. The other options were just reds.

Test 4: All options give catastrophic results. If I say we're doing well, the players disagree, if I say we could be doing better, they still disagree, and 75% of the players go from OK-Fairly good directly down to Abysmal. Weird how you can only increase in slight increments, but when morale goes down, it doesn't go down a bit, it goes all the way down.

It's funny how this feature has been destroyed I cannot ever use it now, because I have roughly a 90% chance of completely obliterating morale in the squad instead of improving it. 90% chance of total catastrophy versus 10% chance of a very slight boost, that just doesn't add up. My rep is World Class, so it can't be a lack of respect.

This is for when morale is already OK-ish, but I want to improve it still. Maybe if your morale is already shattered, it could have a positive effect.

Calmly: "We've had a poor run lately but I'm keen to ensure our heads don't drop"

*Ask captain*

*Ask room*

*Ask room again*

Assertively/passionately: "That's exactly the sort of reaction I was looking for"

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I don't think the above has ever given me a negative reaction from any player, even on 12.1.1.

[on latest patch]

I was on a terrible run and my assistant suggested I hold a team meeting.

I said something along the lines of 'you need to believe in yourself' (can't remember exactly)

and the whole team responded positively - I asked around and the squad all had good things to say.

Morale improved dramatically and I won 2 in a row (after not winning in about 7)

Never had a problem with team meetings,my team normally back me 100%.

Then the word "lately" should be omitted from the sentence. Saying "Things haven't gone our way lately" relates to recent matches, not the last year. As other people are having decent results with meetings, it suggests that the options having several possible meanings that seems to be causing the issues, rather than it being broken as such. I can understand players taking things the wrong way, but when we're unsure as to what we're saying to them ourselves, it makes the meetings too risky to be useful imo.

Fair point, there should still be some risk. Even if it did only relate to the last few games, I can imagine there would still be some players who'd react badly to it. I just think at the moment, it's a bit too risky because of the options not being completely clear.

Fwiw, it's definitely going to be a great addition long-term; it reminds me of when teamtalks and 3D were first added. They were a bit ropey in their early incarnations, but you could tell that they would become a great part of the game.

I think that you need to tone down the negative reactions, especially for Professional or Loyal players - or non-controversial players overall, really. The options are too vague and the things taken into account are too secret to risk saying anything in a team meeting as it is now.

I have had two complete disasters, one that didn't do much and one really good one. I have no idea why there were four different results, because in my eyes I did everything perfectly right according to the situations we were in at the time.

fwiw the success team meeting happened in 12.1.1.

I use team meetings mostly in pre-season to boost morale and start out the season strong. It's usually a bad idea to do it during the season, unless you're at the bottom of the table or your team's morale is already very bad. It's like the fire emergency case.