"Didn't seem to be listening".... (enough is enough)

Team talks

This has to be one of the daftest, and most insulting parts of FM, and the way it goes is thus:

You start a new season.

You win a friendly and say "Well done"

The players are "Happy, looked delighted"

You win the next friendly and say "Well done"

"Nothing specific noted"

By the third time you praise the players, they "Didn't seem to be listening".

In fact, the third time you praise them could be after the first half of only the second match, at which point the players are already ignoring you. Why?

If you say nothing to them, they get angry but if you praise them they ignore you. Why?

One of the in-game tips is to not keep saying the same thing to your players as it will have less of an effect. So why is there such a limited choice, thereby forcing us to continually repeat ourselves anyway?

Why, exactly, does it say "Didn't seem to be listening"? That seems to have been put there with the sole intention of annoying the gamer, as it can't possibly serve any other purpose.

Why doesn't it just say "Nothing specific noted" as opposed to "Didn't seem to be listening"?

I find it really annoying, also, that I have to waste this very limited effect on meaningless friendlies when it could be better served right at the beginning of competitive action. But normally by then the payers aren't listening to me, and it's nearly impossible to get a rise out of them, even if the opener to a season was a fierce local derby. I can't imagine for a second the Everton players IRL rolling their eyes and ignoring David Moyes' praise if they'd just beaten Liverpool in the Premiership's opening match of the season....

I know lots of people just (ironically) ignore team talks and get on with the game, but imo this is one area of the game that hasn't moved on at all in the last few versions, is stagnant, and needs looked at/expanded upon, or just removed.

Thoughts/Suggestions?.....

team talks are stupidly done in the last FM games. you are leading an away game 0-1 and at half time you say "pleased" ,then in the second half you get scored on 3 times. doesnt make sense!!

meh..... i wouldn't say annoying but it is a feature which isnt as good as it should be, if your a mid-table team like me then you change the team talk each match because 1 minute your playing a bad team expecting a win, then next match you have a top table team where you saying pressure is off or they can win this

I always choose 'you can win this' and 'well done' if i ever change it they play **** especially if i choose pleased when there 1 or 2 up at half time. Once as Napoli i was 3-0 against Lazio, chose pleased and lost 5-3. team talks are limited, need a bit more variation.

Just to clarify; I'm not saying I don't know how to use team talks, I just don't like the set-up, especially the wording used.

"Didn't seem to be listening" is totally unnecessary and serves no purpose.

i find indidivdual praise is better taken than team praise.

even if they're both 'well done' .

team talks are stupidly done in the last FM games. you are leading an away game 0-1 and at half time you say "pleased" ,then in the second half you get scored on 3 times. doesnt make sense!!

If we're winning I never give a half time team talk, unless it's a couple of individual well done's or prove a point's. Not sure why it works but it seems much more reliable than opening my mouth and risking a second half collapse.

yep, its horribly flawed

The best opening post I've seen in ages. Not only that, it's bang on the money. Team talks have hardly been looked at since they were implemented. I've often wondered about the contradiction between having to vary your team talks and yet not being able to because of the limited options.

Nice one, Wee Aja.

Just to clarify; I'm not saying I don't know how to use team talks, I just don't like the set-up, especially the wording used.

"Didn't seem to be listening" is totally unnecessary and serves no purpose.

I think this would serve a purpose if only the occasional player "Didn't seem to be listening". Maybe a malcontent or someone with a bad attitude, but as it is, it is poorly implemented.

I think this would serve a purpose if only the occasional player "Didn't seem to be listening". Maybe a malcontent or someone with a bad attitude, but as it is, it is poorly implemented.

Yep, that's an excellent point there. A "didn't seem to be listening" could be used to show up someone in the Pennant/Diouf mould, as opposed to the whole team ignoring you.

Expanding on what I said in the OP - I also struggle to see why a fresh-faced 17/18yr old kid would totally ignore his boss's praise after he scored the winner in a big match, or even if he scored a goal in any match, for that matter. Yet it happens with EVERY single player on FM?

"Well done, son. Brilliant!"

"Er, yeah like, whatever...."

PS - Cheers, Mike

Just bringing this back to the top in the hope more people comment on it.

I feel this is something that needs addressed in the next FM. Even just to change the text would be a Godsend, and would be far less insulting.

Yeah team talk wording does seem pretty limited at the moment. I never did understand why the whole team didnt seem to listening at the end of a game, even players that had played well, and id praised. More options, and just generally more realistic and well rounded responses from players.

i cant help but think SI have been incredibly lazy when it comes to team talks

not only are there few phrases to choose from, but theyre often very oddly worded and dont really reflect what you actually want to get across

as for how the players react to them, it ruins any sense of realism or envelopment into the game

and its been like this for years

When my players ignore me, I just beat snout out of them (and yes, my squad discipline is really high).

Anyway, I do agree the team talk system is quite bland, but from experience having an assisant with really high motivating can work (an assisant with 20 motivating), just go with whatever he says even if it sounds very stupid, I bet the most players will respond well to it.

( I dont know what that smiley thing is trying to say, just go with it).

SI don't seem to be listening.

I check my team talk feefback quite regularly and this is one of the most annoying things.

You would think that you at least demanded enough respect to be listened to.

SI don't seem to be listening.

I won't go away until they do listen.

Hence the bump.

You read my mind. The didn't seem to be listening feature is pointless because it leaves you nowhere to go. You then can't say anything other than angry to your players ever again because nothing has any effect after game.

I've found giving individual teamtalks works better, which really contradicts the whole team talk purpose.

Also, I signed an Assman with 17 for motivating and he still gave the same team talks as me. rubbish.

I mentioned on another thread about my Ass Man with fantastic attributes giving team talks.

All he ever done was say "nothing", no matter what the result. Bizarre.

Although, in fairness, I don't really blame him because he must've known the players would ignore him anyway...

I've wondered about this for a while, especially when my team has won something significant (promotion, FA/League Cups, Champions League etc) and the entire team has "Didn't seem to be listening" when I congratulate them on their victory. It's almost like they know it's only FM......

For me I can never give a team talk when winning at half time in FM 09, because it seems whether I say pleased, thrilled, don't get complacent, keep it up etc, they always find a way to f*ck it all up.

Something that needs more than just a lick of paint in 10. Shame no one can make a team talk editor to add ones. Would be class.

Good opening post. I really thought that this would be one of the key things SI would look at for 2009.

As already said, didn't seem to be listening should be rare and if it is the whole team it should be an indication that you have lost the dressing room.

For 'Nothing specific noted' I would prefer different descriptions according to morale, such as 'Remained bouyant' or 'Could not lift his spirits'.

I don't mind 'Nothing specific noted' - but 'Didn't seem to be listening" is just really badly written.

I'd like to hear anything SI have to say on this, if at all possible (I'm sure they're busy, but a quick word would do).

I don't think there's anyone who plays FM that would actually believe "Didn't seem to be listening" has a valid place when it is indicating an entire team's reaction to a talk.

And as Heisenberg said - they even ignore us when we congratulate them on winning a trophy, a title or a promotion. That's just not right, imo.

Only once has a halftime teamtalk worked positivley for me (from what I can tell). Loosing to a lower division side in the cup, the halftime teamtalk was "this is an embarrassment" then they went out there and pumped the opposition. Afterwards one of my players told the press of how the halftime teamtalk made a difference.

Other than that I have seen no effect, other than the negatives, of giving team talks.

It's more a game of bingo these days than anything else, with them being so damned vague.

You select an option and hope to avoid the auto-lose button.

NEVER USE EXPECT TO WIN

means go in and loose.

u can win this only options that is good sometimes. all others can backfire hard.

I've not had a problem at all using team talks effectively, a mixture of all of the options and I've not had a negative reaction yet.

Team talks are broken. It says alot about this game that my least favorite position to be in is going into halftime up 2-0. I clearly say the wrong thing, while the AI manager pulls out a motivational masterpiece that has his team storm back into game. I'd say 90% of the time this leads to a draw or loss for me, despite dominating the first half.

I felt like in previous games team talks only occasionally affected games, so you couldn't always get amazing comebacks or have two halfs that looked very different. In this year's version results almost always seems to hinge on half-time talks, which means that all of your hours of tactic building, player recruitment, training and development efforts boil down to getting results based on fuzzy guesswork on a set of 5 or 6 poorly implemented and "canned" replies.

Worst part of the game for me by far.

I always do individual talks based on their rating, not based on the score.

I always do individual talks based on their rating, not based on the score.

How do you deal with the broken AMC rating when giving individual talks? Or a striker that is playing well but hasn't got on the score sheet yet?

How do you deal with the broken AMC rating when giving individual talks? Or a striker that is playing well but hasn't got on the score sheet yet?

I don't play with AMC and have had no problems with low striker ratings.

Just bringing this one back to the top.

I'm not boosting here. Moreover, I'm hoping I'll hear from someone at SI on the possibility of expanding team talks to include more options and make it more relevant/realistic.

Team talks have been flawed for a while now and mentioned numerous times. Unfortunately I still don’t see anything being done about them.

My first problem with them is that they’re too effective. They should only be used as a supplement to your players, tactics and substitutions but they seem to be the main factor in the game and a good team talk can override bad tactics while a bad team talk can override a good tactic.

I recently played Chelsea away and expecting a hammering I played with a defensive mentality, narrow, short passing, deep d-line and so on with the idea of containing them. It didn’t seem to help however as I was 3-0 down at half time without a single shot on goal.

I then told the team I expected to see more of them and didn’t change a single tactic or make any substitutions and went on to dominate the second half and came back to draw 3-3. There’s just no way my talk should have been that effective and had that much of an impact.

It makes it impossible to tell whether you have good or bad tactics because you could have the bets tactic in the world but if you get the team talk wrong and the opposition manager gets his right then you’re destined to lose, regardless of tactics, players, form, morale etc. which should all be taken into account.

It feels like you’re playing a game of rock, paper scissors with your half-time talks. Get it right and you’re laughing but get it wrong and you’ll suffer.

Team talks

can't imagine for a second the Everton players IRL rolling their eyes and ignoring David Moyes' praise if they'd just beaten Liverpool in the Premiership's opening match of the season....

Quite ironic, started an online game with a friend on Saturday and I'm in control of Everton, opening match of the season was Liverpool and beat them 2-0 just thought I'd through that irony in there.

That's a good point, Bigwig - team talks are also far too effective, and it's easy to tell when an AI manager has "picked the right one" by how his team performs in the second half. Oldham Athletic can be transformed into Barcelona with a simple team talk.

I think it also depends on the personality of the players, more determined players react better to "dont get complacent" try looking at you assistants feedback on the motivation tab during the game to see what your players react to rather than the post match feedback which seems to be a little random. If they are looking fired up or motivated during the second half then your team talk had probably worked

"One of the in-game tips is to not keep saying the same thing to your players as it will have less of an effect. So why is there such a limited choice, thereby forcing us to continually repeat ourselves anyway?"

Indeed.

Coupled with the effect on performance team talks have. Not sure about FM9 as I can’t stand playing it, but in FM8 (before I gave up on that) the weighting of team talks was wildly overdone. If you pick the wrong team talk you might as well pack up and go home, never mind tactics and preparation (not that you have preparation options), so forcing you to change team talks would be consigning you to defeat in many cases: EG; AI deems “wish luck” as the only appropriate team talk in this instances – “wish luck” is invalidated for you as you’ve had the temerity to use it too many times before – ergo, certain defeat.

Ludicrous.

I think most of the advice on team talks from SI is how they would like them to work rather than how they actually work.

If you believe all you read about them talks then they’re tied in to personality, opposition, form, previous talks etc. but I just don’t see that to be the case.

I’ve played games where I’m losing away from home and telling my unprofessional, low determined, poor morale player that I’m disappointed in him and see him go on to have a blinder and win me the game.

Similarly in the same scenario I’ve had my professional, determined, superb morale player in the same position and telling him I’m disappointed in him doesn’t do a thing and he actually regresses second half.

These sort of scenarios shouldn’t happen if you believe the ‘official’ team talk guidance, but they do happen and quite frequently as well.

It feels like a dice roll at times and you’re just hoping to get the luck of the roll rather than picking and choosing the right talk under the right circumstances.

I actually feel it works better in 09 than it has in previous versions, I've found team talks to help boost morale and combat complacency.

I've not got a problem with how they're used, they don't feel that random to me, but there is a random element just like there is in real life. It's not an exact science, which I think many people want.

I do have a problem with the way the non-responses are worded though.

Just had a trawl through, using a search, and found a thread which was a fantastic idea imo.

http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php?t=32577&highlight=team+talks+idea

Have a read, it's really good.

It was made PRIOR to FM09, so if there's some already there, then sorry.