Player Interaction - The next step?

Before I get started on where I want to go with this thread, I just need to make a few things clear. I am about to set out what I think should be SI's next big step. However, please don't read that as me saying that I believe everything we have now is perfect. I certainly don't believe, for example, that SI should consider the 3D match engine a finished article and move on to what I'm about to talk about. I doubt they would do that, anyway. I love the 3D, but I believe there's plenty of distance left to run in terms of getting it right. Similarly, I hope there will be a major push for FM2010 to increase the variety and reduce the predictability of interaction with the media and in press conferences. In other words, just because I'm about to declare what I believe should be SI's next big step, doesn't mean anyone should assume I think the current features in the game are all 100% perfect.

Anyway, I've been thinking for a while (and have posted about it in the past) that there simply isn't the scope within the game to communicate with players. As things stand, everything is so indirected. A player will go to the media, and you will have the option to respond. You'll say something about a player through the media, and he will respond. Now this shouldn't be taken out. It's an important part of the game, and it does take place in real life. Real Madrid used the media to communicate with Cristiano Ronaldo, for example. Various Newcastle managers have talked to the media about Michael Owen's contract. It does happen.

The problem is that none of this allows you to talk directly to players, either as a group or individually. What I would like to see is a whole range of possible topics on which you can talk to a player or your team as a whole. Here is a handful of example. Please do not consider it an exhaustive list.

- Player A has 'Unh' by his name. As a manager, it's time we could actually talk to him about it. Perhaps you would call a meeting with him and his agent. First off, you would ask him what seems to bothering him. Obviously, a back and forth exchange would then take place. Sometimes, the outcome would be positive. Sometimes, it would be the opposite. Perhaps it might even be possible for you or him to storm out! Also, players should have the option to approach you to talk things through.

- Form. How infuriating is it when a player is in a bad run of form and you can't communicate with him at all, bar the very limited options in individual teamtalks? It irritates me, anyway. But not only that, there would be nothing wrong with calling a player to your office to tell him he's on fire and you hope it continues. In other words, give us the power to talk to a player directly about form. Perhaps some players will take better to the carrot, while others respond only to the stick.

- Transfer rumours. I don't know about anyone else, but my Roma squad is constantly the focus of various transfer rumours. Sometimes I wish I could talk to players about it. For example, when Real Madrid and Manchester United target Daniele De Rossi, I want to be able to tell him how integral he is to my plans and that I need to know where he's at and ask him to ignore them and stay focused on Roma.

- Discipline. If I have a player who keeps on getting booked, I want to be able to tell him privately to watch it. If a player is sent off, I want to be able to tell him it's unacceptable or that I sympathise with him, depending on circumstances.

These are just a few ideas that have been bobbing around my head. Like I said, it's not an exhaustive list. I could keep going, but I would only be reiterating the same point. I believe that, with 3D implemented, media interaction developing (in a way) with every release, this is the next step SI should take. It's time to give us that power. It's entirely unrealistic that we can only communicate with our own players through the media, and yet if direct communication with players was implemented well, I believe it will add to that realism and also be a lot of fun.

If anyone's still with me after all that, feel free to discuss or shoot me down or whatever you like.

I like this, I cant really think of anything to add. you seem to have all the bases covered.

+1

I like it

Player interaction is probably one of the most important tasks of a IRL manager and should have been widely supported in the game a long time ago. Then again, it will be very hard to implement into the game in a satisfying way.

nice additions there.

In FMH09 in the Player Interaction menu you can actually choose whether to talk to the player privately about something (e.g. his poor form) or publicly announce it to the press. Your assistant manager also provides you advice of what would work best with that particular player, e.g. private or public. Not sure why this is not in FM yet.

And yeah would definitely be great to have a broader range of topics to talk about with the player.

and +1

I fully agree with you. My "IRL" management style tends to be to keep praise public, and to keep criticism private. I'd probably hold a lot of "Come into my office" chats with players if I were really managing; I've wanted to be able to adopt that style in-game for several years now.

I think it could be made a bit more interesting by setting up players who respond better to public praise or private praise or public criticism or private criticism or public promises or private promises.

Speaking of, the "Player Promises" section could stand some building-out. I'd like to be able to promise players things *by time*, in other words, during the 2009/10 season, I might promise a youngster an increased role during the 2010/11 season, or promise him a new contract at season's end, or promise to let him test the transfer market over the summer between the two ... or even promise him an increased role in 2011/12.

I'd also like to be able to leak some of those comments to the media, along with leaking transfer-rumours to the media like "If Joe Bloggs doesn't show me something in the next month, I'm going to have to start shopping for a new left back in the January window."

Player interaction is probably one of the most important tasks of a IRL manager and should have been widely supported in the game a long time ago. Then again, it will be very hard to implement into the game in a satisfying way.

Given the repetitive nature of interaction with the media, and, sadly, also of press conferences, I can see what you mean. However, personally, I wouldn't take media interaction out of the game. I would prefer to see a major drive towards introducing much greater variety and less predictability and monotony to it. Similarly, with individual player interaction (as I shall call it), I would hope that it would be done in such a way that there was plenty of variety. I believe this would be possible because there are quite a lot of different things you would be able to talk to players about. I listed only four, but there are a number of possibilities within those four, as well as more outside of them that I didn't bother to list.

Like the idea, but as mentioend before in other thread will be diffiult to implement, but the idea is great.

Personally, I don't think something being difficult to implement should necessarily be a barrier to looking into it.

this is a very good idea. Don't get me wrong, I love playing this game, but for a game that is widely regarded as the best football management game around, it is really pretty ridiculous that there is so little interaction with players, and it really takes away from the quality and immersion of the game. This should have been addressed in a major way by now, and to me there is absolutely no excuse for this is not made a major feature of fm2010.

Liked it very much

good idea Mike,and yes it should be easy to implement too

Excellent thread Ekim As you know, despite it's repetitive nature, i'm a real fan of the interaction side of the game and think there are many things that could be added that would make the game a more personal, interesting and enduring experience.

One thing I would add is that the player interaction would need to be closely linked to player personality and media interaction. Each player would of course react differently to your little chat and some would feel inclined to let the press in on the act, Chimbonda springs to mind. In the same way, we could become bad role models and be as crafty as the players. This would, again, enhance the personal experience of the game as we would further develop positive and negative relationships with the players. There is not enough in the game atm for us to develop anything other than a good relationship with a majority of players. Players really should irritate us for more reasons than their form.

As I see it, there is always a glass ceiling with every save game we play and eventually there comes a point when we are happy with our team, training, tactics and essentially all we have left to do is pick the team and watch the match. For me there comes a point when the game gets boring and I want to start over again. The emphasis placed on squad rotation, in 09, has went some way towards giving us an extra challenge and a challenge that will always be there no matter how long our save is, and will give the game an edge and a challenge even if we have the perfect tactic and the perfect players. Other features that will emphasise game longevity, such as player interaction, are a must.

Personally, I don't think something being difficult to implement should necessarily be a barrier to looking into it.

I'd also agree with this.

Nomis's point about player personalities is something I didn't mention in my original post, and not something I really thought about. It's certainly an important part of it. Chimbonda is a good example of a personality that would be tricky to manage. I'm sure there's plenty more examples. If you were managing, say, Man Utd, I imagine that if someone came in for Wayne Rooney, the conversation would be very short because (as far as I can tell) he's pretty committed to the club. In the case of Ronaldo, though, he requires an almost new approach to player management. You'd have to stroke his ego whilst trying to get him to commit.

Similarly with something like player form, I imagine some players would respond better to you than others based on their personalities.

Personally, I don't think something being difficult to implement should necessarily be a barrier to looking into it.

No it shouldn't and I think SI should break through the barrier to try and get something like this involved but it would still be very hard to implement and even if it is put in new versions I doubt it would be as in-depth as you have mentioned in your original post. Good idea though.

I thought there was an option to make player interaction private, sure I heard it in a podcast.

Managing Bayern Munich there doesn't seem to be a save in which Klose doesn't become unhappy because of "personal problems", at the moment all I can do is give him a "leave of absence" and that's that, there is no way for me to boost his morale in any way e.g. tell him to take care Seriously though, interaction and morale should also be linked and perhaps this thread goes well with my Confidence & Morale Thread , which is another aspect of the the game that could be improved.

Yeah, I doubt it too. But that doesn't mean we should write it off. Or anything else, for that matter. I don't know how SI work, and I also don't know what's realistic, but I in my head I like to picture dedicated teams working on features to get them right. With press conferences and media interaction, I personally think a group of people should be devoted to just that, developing questions and possible responses and making sure there's plenty of variety. I feel the same about my idea.

But that might be jibberish in reality.

EDIT: My 'Yeah, I doubt it too' was at TomHAVFC.

I thought there was an option to make player interaction private, sure I heard it in a podcast.

Even if there is, it's still astonishingly limited in terms of how you can interact.

Yeah, I doubt it too. But that doesn't mean we should write it off. Or anything else, for that matter. I don't know how SI work, and I also don't know what's realistic, but I in my head I like to picture dedicated teams working on features to get them right. With press conferences and media interaction, I personally think a group of people should be devoted to just that, developing questions and possible responses and making sure there's plenty of variety. I feel the same about my idea.

But that might be jibberish in reality.

EDIT: My 'Yeah, I doubt it too' was at TomHAVFC.

There's no way we should write it off as it's a very good point and would significantly improve the game and hopefully it's a bit easier to implement than some of us think and if it is quite simple to do then SI should not hold back and get this involed for 2010.

I'd like to be able to say things in the press like player a should be considered for the international team or something like that. Rather than just playing well it should be i can't believe cappello hasn't selected him or how could he drop him etc.

For a software team who have implemented and developed the whole football match engine and associated stuff I don't think "difficult to implement" is an issue for this. Difficult to get balanced maybe, but that is the problem with so many aspects of the game.

This is one of the things that most annoys me though given how big an effect morale has. It is such a big problem that I find myself not selecting players with poor or very poor morale, which of course means they get unhappy about a lack of first team football and are eternally on very poor morale. The only option I seem to find is to put them in the reserves, hope they put in some stong performances and get good morale, then put them back in the first team and hope they perform and then lose their "Unh" tag.

I'm sure a real life manager tries everything he can to raise the morale of players in his team when he wants them to perform to their best ability. For example, a player complaining about a lack of first team football would surely get a temporary morale boost if I could tell him before the match that he will definitely be in my team. What he then does with that temporary morale boost is his lookout, but it should at least mean he doesn't automatically play badly like too many players with Very Poor morale do.

I agree with the thoughts in the original post in general, although I don't want some implementation that is just a more in depth version of the "take a punt and cross your fingers" option at the moment when, even after seeing how a player has reacted previously, it is still a total 50-50 punt whether a player's morale will be improved or made worse in reaction to certain comments. Intelligent player interaction would be a big improvement though. Not saying I want it to be "mistake-proof"

obviously, but in real life you can have a conversation with a player not just make a statement, see how they react and then think "Oh well, that was my one attempt, now I'll have to wait a week before I can try another one line soundbite"

It's a sad indictment of the current state of the forums that any serious thread (as well as non-serious ones) always has to be prefaced by loads of clauses to ensure people know the original poster's mindset beforehand, regarding whether he/she is about to savage the game or whether they think it is almost perfect or whether they have played the game as long as Nomis07's 86 years!

Managing Bayern Munich there doesn't seem to be a save in which Klose doesn't become unhappy because of "personal problems", at the moment all I can do is give him a "leave of absence" and that's that, there is no way for me to boost his morale in any way e.g. tell him to take care Seriously though, interaction and morale should also be linked and perhaps this thread goes well with my Confidence & Morale Thread , which is another aspect of the the game that could be improved.

I wonder if that is something that happens more often when a human manager is in control. Certainly Klose never had any personal problems in my FM08 Bremen save...or if he did he dealt with them with such fortitude that he still managed to net over 40 goals in a season!

Young glamdring has hit the nail on the head, especially in his final paragraph.

Implementation is the major problem for FM interaction. I was delighted to hear about the press cofnerences function being added for 09 and it was the feature that really got me excited about the game, but i'm already getting bored of how things can be taken the wrong way and how much of an impact they can have on morale.

There was a thread about answers being taken the wrong way, yesterday.

I wonder if that is something that happens more often when a human manager is in control. Certainly Klose never had any personal problems in my FM08 Bremen save...or if he did he dealt with them with such fortitude that he still managed to net over 40 goals in a season!

I found that he passed the first season ok and scored plenty, but come the second season he struggled for goals and became unhappy, I eventually sold him each time. Now that I think about it, in my other saves with different clubs, he maintained form and happiness with Bayern until retiring.

Young glamdring has hit the nail on the head, especially in his final paragraph.

He really, really did. I can't really add anything to what he said. All I can do is nod in resounding agreement.

The reason I prefaced my original post so thoroughly was that I thought that if I didn't say that stuff, people would just say things like "they need to focus on getting other things right first" or, worse, something about being a fanboy who thinks the game is perfect.

Personally, I don't think something being difficult to implement should necessarily be a barrier to looking into it.

Liked it very much

good idea Mike,and yes it should be easy to implement too

Why do you think it is easy to implement (I have no knowledge of programming)?

of course you can add all kinds of responses in for the manager, but the reaction of the players, that is in my opinion the difficult part, I just can't be the same reaction of the player for each comment we make otherwise it will become repeptive after a while. You would never know how a player would react to a certain remark you make.

Don't get me wrong, I like the idea and if it is easy to program or so, bring it on for FM10/FM11 or whenever.

My point really is that just because there are tricky things about it doesn't mean it shouldn't be looked into. Take a look at glamdring's post. As he says, given what SI have managed to do so far, ruling something out because it might be hard to balance is not the right way to go.

My point really is that just because there are tricky things about it doesn't mean it shouldn't be looked into. Take a look at glamdring's post. As he says, given what SI have managed to do so far, ruling something out because it might be hard to balance is not the right way to go.

Yeah see the point now (just didn't read the post good), sorry to bother you all.

Aye, as a programmer myself (albeit not a games programmer) implementing something like this would cause no problem whatsoever that I could envisage. The devil is in the detail of coming up with all the potential player responses and how each should be triggered and all that - that is a design issue. Programming it is a piece of cake (compared to all that is already in FM) if you can manage to get the module designed in the first place and that is the bit that is exceptionally difficult.

Edit: Another thought, regarding the difficulty of getting something like this balanced, it should be one of those implementations that can be introduced as a weasly weak implementation to start with. I know people would then complain it is usless, but starting off with that and then turning up the wick gradually on its effects is the best way. Team talks went like that - in my opinion they have gone over the top now, but they were a token gesture at the start that neither ruined a game not added a vast amount to it - then they were toned up in future versions once the main implementation was up and running.

Great thread guys, some well thought out ideas. As was said, player interaction is a major part of any managers job IRL, lets be honest Keegan would never have had a job in management if his man management skills weren't as good as they are and Hoddle would probably still be England manager if he had any man management skills (oh yeah and he hadn't made a stupid comment to the media!). Getting a player to want to play for you and the club (Solksjaer is a good example) despite only getting the odd start and sub appearance and un-doubted interest from other top clubs is a talent which needs to be shown in the game. Obviously it needs a lot of time and dedication to get right and I'd rather not see it in 2010 and it be right for 2011 than a botched job for 2010.

The devil is in the detail of coming up with all the potential player responses and how each should be triggered and all that - that is a design issue.

This was in fact what I meant all along, thanks for clearing that

Yes, it would be better to start it off in a small form and go from there.

Not that I expect it will happen, but I'd be interested to hear from someone at SI regarding how they go about getting these sorts of things together and what they think of the idea of dedicated groups of people to particular features in order to push them beyond where they're at now. Currently, I have no idea if they already do this, or if it is an unworkable or even ridiculous idea.

Well on my FIFA experience (boo, hiss) I have to say this does get rather repetetive and tedious too - ie. too much interaction wastes a lot of time and quickly becomes transparent (see Media in FM09). Having said that......

On the other hand, I'd like a bit more game changing interaction - so for instance hauling a misfiring striker off at half time and replacing him in a like for like swap with a young prodigy is bound to have repercussions if you try and tell him its tactical.....all the way up to an irreparable rift. Taking a player aside on 70 minutes and telling him that Gareth Bale is tiring from racing up and down the flank and that he should try and take him on for pace more....rather than mindlessly trying to find the right slider position in tactics.

Equally so, more squad interaction would be nice - more friction between players (but not necessarily always with such grave consequences), playing your part and adding your own 2 cents in a media fueled face-to-face league showdown (Lampard vs Gerrard for instance). Publicly backing your striker to come good and end his goal drought when YOU feel the time is right. Getting involved when managers slate your players, or when a particularly nasty foul has left your star striker sidelined for 2 months....

Plenty of things to do, so I agree the system needs a big overhaul. Again.

I'd be interested to hear how people think the player/manager interface could be implemented.

Personnally i'm not a big fan of choosing from a 'list' of responses like the press-conferences... It feels too detached from having a dialogue with a person unless you have a full and intuative list of human emotional responses.

.... and then, even if you wildly increase the amount of possible responses i'm worried that it would involve spending lots of time having to read each choice carefully before choosing a response, slowing the gameplay considerably.

Don't get me wrong, I think that the OP has a great idea that is a very important facet of football management.... i'm Just playing Devils Advocate

Well on my FIFA experience (boo, hiss) I have to say this does get rather repetetive and tedious too - ie. too much interaction wastes a lot of time and quickly becomes transparent (see Media in FM09).

I agree, when it comes to press conferences etc that we have no control over, but player interaction would be at our discretion and if it became tedious/boring it wopuld be our fault for using it too much. As for fixing the repititve/tedious nature of press conferences etc, I don't think that different answers or questions is the problem, and it wouldn't seem quite so bad if we didn't have to do it so bloody often.

I'd be interested to hear how people think the player/manager interface could be implemented.

Personnally i'm not a big fan of choosing from a 'list' of responses like the press-conferences... It feels too detached from having a dialogue with a person unless you have a full and intuative list of human emotional responses.

.... and then, even if you wildly increase the amount of possible responses i'm worried that it would involve spending lots of time having to read each choice carefully before choosing a response, slowing the gameplay considerably.

Don't get me wrong, I think that the OP has a great idea that is a very important facet of football management.... i'm Just playing Devils Advocate

I've no problem with there being lorry-loads of different potential responses (although no reason why they should all be available in every situation anyway) so long as they all do what they say on the tin, unlike lots of the responses to media questions (FM08 and earlier, dunno about FM09) where you pick a response and then find it interpreted in a totally different way to what you thought it should mean.

I don't see any other way to do it though. Allowing the user to type in their own sentances would require the game to have a dictionary, sentance parser and all manner of complex stuff in order to understand what you are trying to say. Mind you, if you take the view that footballers are thick as two short planks I guess it could just be implemented that if you say anything involving words of longer than 6 letters the player will just look at you blankly

I agree, when it comes to press conferences etc that we have no control over, but player interaction would be at our discretion and if it became tedious/boring it wopuld be our fault for using it too much. As for fixing the repititve/tedious nature of press conferences etc, I don't think that different answers or questions is the problem, and it wouldn't seem quite so bad if we didn't have to do it so bloody often.

I think that is the key, the fact that we'd have control over when, with whom and how often would make it much less repetitive and potentially a very usefull tool. It could also be used to explain to a player why you are sending him on loan or have put him on the transfer list. As for the press conferences, I think they are a good implementation that just needs to be developed for greater scope!

Although we'd have control over when we went to talk to players, I believe it would be important that they could come to us too. If you couldn't be bothered to deal with it, I suppose an option like "ask assistant to deal with it" would solve that one. Just don't get miffed when your assistant ruffles the player's feathers!

Exactly Mike, could really be used to help build or destroy ersonal relationships which as I've stated a few posts ago is the only reason some managers are successful.

As they seem to focus less on the cornerstones of football for every release and more on the tabloid side of football the next player interaction is probably "sleep with his wife"

Please focus on 3 things only for the next year. Tactical design, match engine and training. Forget EVERYTHING else for now.

Please focus on 3 things only for the next year. Tactical design, match engine and training. Forget EVERYTHING else for now.

And then you'll have people complaining about lack of interaction improvement.

As they seem to focus less on the cornerstones of football for every release and more on the tabloid side of football the next player interaction is probably "sleep with his wife"

Please focus on 3 things only for the next year. Tactical design, match engine and training. Forget EVERYTHING else for now.

I have a feeling you didn't read the opening part of my post at all.

Also, interacting with players is a cornerstone of football. We, as managers, need to be able to communicate directly with our players, and they with us. Of course, it needs to be implemented in such a way that nothing so silly as "sleep with his wife" ever gets near it.

Also, interacting with players is a cornerstone of football. We, as managers, need to be able to communicate directly with our players, and they with us.

Like what is happening in Holland at Feyenoord at the moment, the players are discussing the workload of there training (lots of injuries, a bug ) and tactics.

After the players all had a discussion together, the captain and vice captains had a session with the coach (Gert Jan Verbeek)

This would be nice if we could have this in the game or something similar.

I have a feeling you didn't read the opening part of my post at all.

Also, interacting with players is a cornerstone of football. We, as managers, need to be able to communicate directly with our players, and they with us. Of course, it needs to be implemented in such a way that nothing so silly as "sleep with his wife" ever gets near it.

I wasn't slaggin your idea's, only SI's focus at the time. Sure there are some good player interactions that could be added, but I bet SI would go for the sleep with options instead. (just a joke though).

Seriously I feel they should just stop adding more fetures atm, when the most important areas of the game is severly lacking.

It's getting more and more reality show manager for each release. While we haven't seen a decent training upgrade for ages. We got a tactical downgrade this year to add the 3D.

THe slider system is so ******** and have no base in reallity. Do you think Wenger stands in the dressing romm saying. Adebayor, today you will have mentality 18, creative freedom 15, close down 14. Van Perise you will have....

He would do no such thing, it doesn't make any sence at all. UNtil they sort out the most important things, new cosmetic features just have to wait, IMHO!

Like what is happening in Holland at Feyenoord at the moment, the players are discussing the workload of there training (Gert Jan Verbeek) and tactics.

After the players all had a discussion together, the captain and vice captains had a session with the coach,

This would be nice if we could have this in the game or something similar.

Yeah, that's an example. I was thinking the most important part of interaction to address at first is for us to be able to ask players what's wrong when they are unhappy and to talk to them about their form and discipline issues.

But yours is a good example. At first I thought it was an exception rather than the rule, but then I realised that stuff like this probably goes on at plenty of clubs.

I think this is one of the best threads I've seen on these forums in a long time..... And it's a brilliant idea Mike.

I don't agree with Butters, but I can see his point..... There are a couple of different ways at looking at a management game like this, one being to simply concentrate on the technical issues and I think that may be where that comment comes from.

We've had a very simplified level of personnel management and personality types for a long time now, and as the game gets more complex, IMHO this is becoming more important (and could potentially be a very rewarding area of the game if developed properly). An improvement in the personal interaction with the players could only help to increase the immersion factor.

He would do no such thing, it doesn't make any sence at all. UNtil they sort out the most important things, new cosmetic features just have to wait, IMHO!

Sure, cosmetic features can wait, but player interaction is not cosmetic, or at least it shouldn't be or else I'd agree it can wait! There's no point in derailing a perfectly good suggestion thread though with the kind of politician-esque mantra of just trotting out 3 totally different areas of the game that you think should be focused on. There are millions of other threads discussing all those things so if those threads are intelligent enough they'll get noticed, if they aren't you should articulate your thoughts (with actual suggestions) in a new thread that will provoke some intelligent discussion of those issues.

I think we should limit the talk of FM09/SI shortcomings, because it could elad to a very interesting thread heading off topic and losing it's relevance.

and now all we need is SI staff to look and respond to this thread...