Calm/Assertive/Reluctant/Passionate/Aggressive etc

Normally this forum is excellent for finding extensive knowledge on the broadest of FM subjects.

I am however struggling to find any theories/ guides on player interaction for this years game (fm 12)

Anyone have any links to any kind forum members thoughts/guides on tones?

To tell you the truth, I'm stumped. I've got a good Liverpool side that has is only a few wins away from clinching the premiership, has won the Carling Cup and is in the Semi-Finals of the FA Cup, and all of a sudden, the entire team's morale is sinking fast. I've been using team meetings to try to boost things, but that doesn't help much and the effects wear off quickly. Most of the players' morale ratings jump when we win a match, but then they quickly sink down again. Now I'm finding it difficult to win matches, which I know is down to sagging morale. The most frustrating aspect of this is that it is completely contrary to real life - a team in such a position would tend to have excellent morale. And even if certain players' morale levels dropped, it is highly unlikely that it would taint the whole team.

It also doesn't help that individual "chats" with players are so limited. Who whole player interaction area needs a lot of work. Frankly, I find it detracts from the enjoyment of the game.

To tell you the truth, I'm stumped. I've got a good Liverpool side that has is only a few wins away from clinching the premiership, has won the Carling Cup and is in the Semi-Finals of the FA Cup, and all of a sudden, the entire team's morale is sinking fast. I've been using team meetings to try to boost things, but that doesn't help much and the effects wear off quickly. Most of the players' morale ratings jump when we win a match, but then they quickly sink down again. Now I'm finding it difficult to win matches, which I know is down to sagging morale. The most frustrating aspect of this is that it is completely contrary to real life - a team in such a position would tend to have excellent morale. And even if certain players' morale levels dropped, it is highly unlikely that it would taint the whole team.

It also doesn't help that individual "chats" with players are so limited. Who whole player interaction area needs a lot of work. Frankly, I find it detracts from the enjoyment of the game.

Don't mention the war!

To tell you the truth, I'm stumped. I've got a good Liverpool side that has is only a few wins away from clinching the premiership, has won the Carling Cup and is in the Semi-Finals of the FA Cup, and all of a sudden, the entire team's morale is sinking fast. I've been using team meetings to try to boost things, but that doesn't help much and the effects wear off quickly. Most of the players' morale ratings jump when we win a match, but then they quickly sink down again. Now I'm finding it difficult to win matches, which I know is down to sagging morale. The most frustrating aspect of this is that it is completely contrary to real life - a team in such a position would tend to have excellent morale. And even if certain players' morale levels dropped, it is highly unlikely that it would taint the whole team.

It also doesn't help that individual "chats" with players are so limited. Who whole player interaction area needs a lot of work. Frankly, I find it detracts from the enjoyment of the game.

When did Liverpool last win the league in a confident manner? The wobbly-knee-period was programmed into the game before the update, and it is still present. It is not contrary to real life that teams and players previously fighting for a gold medal suddenly buckles under the pressure, and 12.1.1 didn't change anything in this regards. It demands more of you as a manager to win the league the last month of the season, and I think that is just how it should be! Before the last update, the easily-achieved superb morale saved our hides in this regards, and I'd say good riddance and welcome challenge!

It is never the game's fault that you don't win. It is always yours! This is the primary knowledge regarding any computer game! It is only after this fact that we can talk about bad games and good game designs, and I'd say that FM is a good game. It is still a game in need of great improvement, just like all the others...

Hey, I didn't say it's the game's fault I don't win. For that matter, I didn't say it's a bad game. I said there is an aspect of the game that is not realistic. My experience in coaching in real life (kids, not adults, but the differences are not as great as you would think) is that no one buckles under pressure unless there is a reason. When they do, they do so as individuals (and, in fact, those many individuals who are not buckling often buck up those who are). Moreover, a manager looking to stop the rot would have more than a handful of choices of things to talk about or what to say in each one.

To tell you the truth, I'm stumped. I've got a good Liverpool side that has is only a few wins away from clinching the premiership, has won the Carling Cup and is in the Semi-Finals of the FA Cup, and all of a sudden, the entire team's morale is sinking fast. I've been using team meetings to try to boost things, but that doesn't help much and the effects wear off quickly. Most of the players' morale ratings jump when we win a match, but then they quickly sink down again. Now I'm finding it difficult to win matches, which I know is down to sagging morale. The most frustrating aspect of this is that it is completely contrary to real life - a team in such a position would tend to have excellent morale. And even if certain players' morale levels dropped, it is highly unlikely that it would taint the whole team.

It also doesn't help that individual "chats" with players are so limited. Who whole player interaction area needs a lot of work. Frankly, I find it detracts from the enjoyment of the game.

This is exectly what I´m dealing with now, moral dropped ALOT after the patch and that leads to worse performance which leads to worse moral and so on. I´ve tried everything to increase moral and now, with a teamtalk and individual talk tactic that is very different from before the patch, I am able to keep most players moral in the area of okey to fairly good. Seems to be quite hard to get moral up to very good, and near impossible to reach superb, exept maybe after a big win, and that only lasts a couple of days.

I´m not complaining, but this has made the game alot harder, and I´m not really figuring out how I should behave towards my players anymore. I even tried hireing a coach with 20 in Man managment, Motivation and Determination and world class reputation but he does even worse then I in motivational speeches. But then again this might have been neccissery as I was just about unbeaten before the patch. Still, quite frustrating to not be able to maintain good moral in a winning team.

Hmm, just read the OP again and it seems this thread has been sidetracked a bit. About the tones, I just go with what feels right and how I would behave. Roleplay baby! Before the patch I used to get great response to aggresive teamtalk but not any more so now I´m usually assertive or passionet. Same goes for team meetings. Individual talks can be any tone what so ever, depends on what we´re talking about, but there I usually start of Calm. But like I said, I just roleplay with the tones, play a character. You can´t appese all players anyway, so just behave like you want to, unless it is clearly not working that is. That´s my advise at least. Might not have much waight as I began talking about troubles maintaining good moral

Just clinched the premiership title. Morale? Two "very good", one "fairly good", everyone else "good". Ludicrous.

I always tend to use assertive or calm. I have yet to see the difference really. I don't really see the point in reluctant and cautious. It just seems daft. Cautiously telling the players 'A good win lads, well done!'.... ?

Whilst I agree that cautiously praising a team for a big win seems ridiculous, it does tend to yield a lot of 'looks delighted' responses. To be honest, I use cautious team talks a lot if I want a morale response and then assertive/passionate if I want a motivation response. Nearly all of my full time team talks will be cautious and sometimes reluctant criticism if it's been a narrow away defeat.

This goes against my common sense that I would want my manager to be assertive and passionate but then maybe footballers are just very sensitive souls...

I always tend to use assertive or calm. I have yet to see the difference really. I don't really see the point in reluctant and cautious. It just seems daft. Cautiously telling the players 'A good win lads, well done!'.... ?

They make sense to me. I'd cautiously praise a win so as not to make them over-confident and complacent, and I'd reluctantly criticise a defeat ("We were doing well but made silly mistakes and let ourselves down" - that's reluctant criticism.) But there are so many options and moods now that there's often more than one option for the same thing, so it's tricky without knowing what they all do.

They make sense to me. I'd cautiously praise a win so as not to make them over-confident and complacent, and I'd reluctantly criticise a defeat ("We were doing well but made silly mistakes and let ourselves down" - that's reluctant criticism.) But there are so many options and moods now that there's often more than one option for the same thing, so it's tricky without knowing what they all do.

Main team talk menu: from top to bottom decreasing pressure.

Sub-menu: from top to bottom decreasing pressure.

... it isn't -exactly- like that but it should give you the general gist of things.

I almost always use assertive or calm, rarely for the fans and expect a win. Passionate for the fans vs rivals. This is mostly because I haven't played long enough to become really high-reputation, and I haven't managed to build a team of resilient professionals yet.

The key is to notice the pre-match odds and pull when they are high, push down when they are low.

Except half the time the pre-match odds make no sense and are linked heavily to club rep rather than current form.

Except half the time the pre-match odds make no sense and are linked heavily to club rep rather than current form.

As in real life, expectation will be on the big-name club.

I struggled with this but now I try to be nice to them as much as possible and it seems to work. I wish them good luck and say well done whenever I can. Sometimes they need an assertive telling off but I only do this if we've been really poor.

I've come to realise that the team talk only plays a small part in team performance and players who don't react can still have excellent games and vice versa.