Shouldn't be able to see opponents condition and morale before match.

Anyone with agree with this?

It's a bit unrealistic that you can look at your opponents squad details just before the match and see every player's exact condition, morale and any of their concerns. It obviously helps you decide if certain players may play or not after quick games in succesion, plus whether you should put extra effort into focusing on certain opposition players or not and so on.

Apologies if there is way to alter this in the game that I do not know about. If that is the case - please inform...

I think this also, when i see a good opponent whose not fully fit i'll tell my players to go in hard so that he gets taken off

I agree with it like you said it's unrealistic, it's basically telling you what players to play based on the other teams morale or condition. If I see a teams defence that is quite tired I'll pick Agbonlahor to play as he's so quick even though he's usually on the bench or not in the first team at all.

Agreed. Indeed, I don't think you should ever be able to see the exact fitness of the opposition, even during games - a rough outline like Excellent, Good, Mediocre, Poor, Bad or some such would make more sense.

Agreed. Indeed, I don't think you should ever be able to see the exact fitness of the opposition, even during games - a rough outline like Excellent, Good, Mediocre, Poor, Bad or some such would make more sense.

I still wouldn't like that as it is basically the same but just not giving exact numbers.

I still wouldn't like that as it is basically the same but just not giving exact numbers.

Oh, I don't mean you should always have that. I agree that seeing any of it before the match is bad. I mean during the match you should be able to get an idea of their fitness (you're looking at them...), but not know the exact amount.

Even having a percentage number for your own team is unrealistic, if someone is coming back from injury the physio hardly says "oi Rafa, Torres is about 82% fit, I'd give him a yellow icon if I were you"

It's another part of the game that is more game than realism focused on appealing to the statisticians than the football realism fan.

Even having a percentage number for your own team is unrealistic, if someone is coming back from injury the physio hardly says "oi Rafa, Torres is about 82% fit, I'd give him a yellow icon if I were you"

It's another part of the game that is more game than realism focused on appealing to the statisticians than the football realism fan.

Well, then the whole attributes system would be unrealistic as well, as your coach would hardly say 'I reckon Torres is about 17 out of 20 in terms of his finishing'.

So we'd have to thread carefully on the line between realism and playability as, after all, fm is but a game.

Well, then the whole attributes system would be unrealistic as well, as your coach would hardly say 'I reckon Torres is about 17 out of 20 in terms of his finishing'.

So we'd have to thread carefully on the line between realism and playability as, after all, fm is but a game.

Attributes are more measurable than fitness though.

I think a simple solution is to only allow it to be viewable once a scout has finished scouting the team. If you don't use scouts to scout next opposition, you shouldn't find out. Usually, they would watch a match and from this they can potentially guage how confident a palyer is, by his performance in the previous game and how tired he looked.

If you were going to mask the opponents morale and fitness, you could add in more detail in "next opposition" scout reports, stating that "Player 'A' was struggling towards the end of the match", or "Player 'B' seemed to be playing with his head down/really enjoying his football".

Similarly, where the Ass Man tells you when your players are running out of steam, he could do the same for the opposition. "We should look to take advantage of their leftback who is breathing hard"

i think to a certain degree it is realistic to see the oppos condition.

after all, we know in real life whether a player isnt' fit because they've just come back from injury. or they've played lots of games and their tiring.

and again, perhaps to a very basic degree though, we also know whether a player is happy or not

If you were going to mask the opponents morale and fitness, you could add in more detail in "next opposition" scout reports, stating that "Player 'A' was struggling towards the end of the match", or "Player 'B' seemed to be playing with his head down/really enjoying his football".

Similarly, where the Ass Man tells you when your players are running out of steam, he could do the same for the opposition. "We should look to take advantage of their leftback who is breathing hard"

Yeh, something like this would be appropriate I think. A little less specific but still a gauge much like you'd have to use in real life rather than exact figures.

Attributes are more measurable than fitness though.

I'd say that IRL fitness is more measurable than attributes. During pre-season or maybe even during the season itself fitness coaches measure the physical state of the players and thus have a benchmark of what 100 % is. e.g. running 5 km in 22 mins or making that 100 m sprint in a given time frame, etc..

Although attributes also can be measured to some extent, these are in my opinion more open to interpretation, whereas fitness is closer to an exact science. There's that famous system used by AC Milan (IIRC) for monitoring the players fitness, although it is also used for analyzing training sessions, player movement off the ball and so on. So analyzing the attributes is getting closer to becoming more scientific, but I still believe that fitness measuring is far more developed.

Now to get back to the OP - yes, I agree that you shouldn't be able to see the other teams fitness conditions, although some indicator should be there, as you and your assistant would obviously be able to determine how the oposition players are performing. And besides that, you do have access to other information e.g. you know for a fact that a player has been on the sidelines for some time and can conclude that he obviously isn't very match fit, but that's a whole different discussion.

I think there’s a case for removing a number of things about players that you can currently see at the click of a button and scouting should be used more to uncover some of these things.

For example, at the moment I can click on any player in the world and find out their basic wage, bonuses and (some) clauses. Is that realistic? Does Ferguson know how much Fabregas earns or does Benitez know that some random striker playing in Sweden has a £500 goal bonus?

In my current save I’m looking for a striker and Arshavin is valued at £12.75m but has a minimum release clause of £13m so I’ve snapped him up. All I had to do was click on his profile to find this out, when in reality I would have expected to have to scout him in order to find this out.

It could also tie in to the media and confirming interest. If I announced my interest in Arshavin through the press then depending on his stats like ambition, loyalty and professionalism he may or may not let slip that he has a clause.

Going further I’ve never been entirely sure that player valuations are a realistic feature. Apart from not being indicative of the club’s true value of a player, I don’t know how realistic it is to be able to view any player in the world and see his value. I realise this may cause problems if it were removed, but I don’t see it as being a particularly realistic feature.

Some interesting points in this thread.

One simple solution to this kind of thing might be to take the 'fog' that's currently applied to player attributes before you scout them and extend it to things like condition, morale, transfer value. At least that way, you give people the option of playing both ways.

One of the big challenges for SI, I think, is going to continuing with their ethos of making everything as 'realistic' as possible while keeping the game enjoyable and balanced.

In reality, for example, many top-flight managers now have very little control over who the club signs and sells, and they certainly don't have any dealings with contract discussions. Yet in the game, I would guess these are two of the most enjoyable aspects for most people.

I wonder if the focus on simulating the role of the 'football manager' might have to shift to just 'being in charge of a football club'. In SimCity, you're supposed to be the mayor (I think?), but you control lots of things that a real-life mayor wouldn't do and are spared some of the more mundane aspects of the job. Other management games aren't restricted by recreating a certain job role, but just give you the 'God' role (Rollercoaster Tycoon, Civilization, off the top of my head).

Very good point. I don't think 'scout next opposition' should uncover morale and condition since the game would be a week before. I do agree that the assman could point out that 'Rooney's looking a bit knackered out there' as he does our players.

Realistically, these issues SHOULD be fogged; conversely some of the hidden attributes should be known - e.g. your own players' level of sportsmanship (I'm sure the press would point it out!) or temprement.