FM Instruction Manual

Put yourself in the place of a complete newbie to FM. You might not even be familiar with football - in the same way that I can watch the Super Bowl and enjoy it, but I haven't a clue about the finer details of American Football tactics, etc. You watch Match of the Day occasionally and enjoy football, but you just about know what 4-4-2 means. That's the limit of your knowledge.

You buy FM, because you think it'll be fun to learn more about the details of football, and you want to buy the best players and manage your favourite team, and have a fun game. Or your mates have it, and you want to see what the fuss is about.

You install it. Great.....now what. You have no idea this forum exists. You have no instruction booklet. You do have the pop-up help comments at the side, but you don't even know where your team squad screen is, or even what DR stands for next to a player.

I imagine this happens a lot. I often feel sorry for people without knowledge of this forum, especially considering we often have arguments about "What does likes-to-run-into-channels mean?" and people will post 10 different answers. We are the informed knowledgeable experienced people and even we don't know the answer.

I often think a detailed comprehensive instruction booklet would help, or even a FM Wikipedia page. It would also be a good place for the informed people to actually post proper answers to questions, such as:

• What do the different personality types mean - if his media handling style is confrontional, what does that mean for me as manager and the team in general?
  
• If I set my player to tackle the opposition harder, what does that actually do? Will he get sent off, or always look to do slide tackles, or just be more aggressive? What's the downsides?
  
• What benefit will I get from a feeder/parent team? In fact, what are feeder/parent teams, and when it says I'll get a merchandising benefit, how much benefit? Why don't I get monthly/annual updates about my merchandising income so I can see how beneficial it's been?
  
• If I get asked a question in a press conference, and I give answer X, what impact will be have? If it's negative/positive, how can I tell? If it's negative for some players, can I add a note so I don't forget which players are easily de-motivated, and are these notes available next time I go to answer a press conference question?
  
• Why would I ever tell a player of mine he'd make a good manager? He won't be manager here, I am, and I don't want him leaving, so that seems a completely negative thing for me to do. What's the positives?
  
• What does the condition levels mean? I get 100% is obviously good, but what's too low? Is 95% good enough? What's the upside/downside to playing players with lower condition?
  
• What are the definitions of the striker roles (poacher, etc)? If I don't know what they mean, how can I pick one properly? Why isn't my assistant telling me?
  

I could go on and on and on......but just imagine you're a complete newbie. You have no idea what decisions to make, because you don't know what impact it will have. Some sort of resource, either on a Wiki or in a booklet that says something like:

PRIVATE CHAT WITH PLAYER

Option: Tell him his recent performances have been good.

Possible Outcomes: (1) Player will appreciate it, morale will rise and performances will stay good. (2) Player will disagree, become de-motivated and think you're too easy to please, and performances will drop.

How I will know which Outcome: Assistant will keep you informed through regular feedback of the player's performance so you can learn this player's personality. The assistant will also suggest ways to improve the player's morale and performances if they drop as a result of your comments.

(also, during private chat, it'd be nice to see something that said "Last time you praised this player, he disagreed and performances dropped" so you were kept fully informed!)

CHANGE THE CAPTAIN

Options: (1) Change to Player A. (2) Change to Player B.

Possible Outcomes: (1) Player A could be a better influencer and leader and the players will react positively to your change and performances will improve. (2) Player A could be a poor leader, or your players think the previous captain was better. Performances and morale may suffer.

How will I know which Outcome: Players will come to you directly with feedback or your assistant will tell you. Players may demand a change of captain again, which may make the previous captain consider his future at the club, or players will respect your strong management skills.

Some sort of booklet/wiki offering descriptions and details about every game decision should help new players out, and quite frankly, provide me (I consider myself a FM veteran) with some better clarity about some new features as well.

Why hasn't this been done?

Football Manager Wiki

Good detailed post though.

Hmm, that Wiki is a good start, I should look around the forum for the related thread and see if they need any help. At the moment, it's a bit bare, and contains no gameplay support, but I can see it's in early stages.

There is also a full manual on the Football Manager website, this has been the case for a couple of years now and on the back of the small manual you do get, it states that very fact.

Do you have a link please? I can't find it and the wiki doesn't have it. I'm interested to learn what detail it goes into.

Do you have a link please? I can't find it and the wiki doesn't have it. I'm interested to learn what detail it goes into.

Google + Football Manager Manual = This

EDIT: Its also in the big sticky above which says Football Manager 2011 FAQ. The very first paragraph has a link to the manual.