Match Preperation

I've just had a thought about Match Preparation...

I've noticed that basically, match preparation (assuming you keep the same tactics across many seasons) is irrelevent after the first season.

My thought is this - each player has a familiarity rating for your tactics, so that when new players are brought in, you need to re-work your preparation of the tactics. If you change tactics, this would still be relevent because players that are currently familiar with your tactics, won't be any more.

It would even add an element to the game where you might be able to see a player's current familiarity when signing them, so you can look to bring in a player when things aren't working so well that is already familiar with the style of football you play, and most importantly, would give more importance to this feature throughout the game.

would be a bit hard to work I think. I mean, formation wise fine, he may play a 442 in his current team (assuming you play 442 as well) so yes he knows where to stand, but then he wont know your style of play, who the play maker is, how they run with with the ball, the type of passes your team employs, what role he would have in the team and so on.

I dont think you could really sign someone who is familiar with your system, unless you released them and re signed them to do the exact same thing they were doing. Maybe their familiarity can just start a bit higher if you play the same formation as they are used to?

but the match preparation only takes into account the 8 things - Formation, Mentality, Passing Style, Creative Freedom, Closing Down, Marking, Tempo and Width. and even then, it doesn't take into account individual player intructions, so there's no reason why a player couldn't have a 'favoured' for each of those 8, or even bars that highlight how high / low they prefer those 8 things. Can't be much involved in that compared to the rest of the game.

If each player had a familiarity level, then the team familiarity could just be a culmination of all the players in the current first 11 (or 11 + subs)

The player familiarity then would shift throughout their career depending at what club they're playing, and what style they play. Could make it interesting, signing a player that doesn't perform AS well until they're familiar with your style as opposed to the whole team gradually improving

but the match preparation only takes into account the 8 things - Formation, Mentality, Passing Style, Creative Freedom, Closing Down, Marking, Tempo and Width. and even then, it doesn't take into account individual player intructions, so there's no reason why a player couldn't have a 'favoured' for each of those 8, or even bars that highlight how high / low they prefer those 8 things. Can't be much involved in that compared to the rest of the game.

If each player had a familiarity level, then the team familiarity could just be a culmination of all the players in the current first 11 (or 11 + subs)

The player familiarity then would shift throughout their career depending at what club they're playing, and what style they play. Could make it interesting, signing a player that doesn't perform AS well until they're familiar with your style as opposed to the whole team gradually improving

So what you are saying is that you should be able to see a players "Fotmation, Passing Style, Creative Freedom, Closing Down, Marking, Tempo and Width" before signing them to make sure it fits in with your style? (only used those as the rest you can see in attributes)

So what you are saying is that you should be able to see a players "Fotmation, Passing Style, Creative Freedom, Closing Down, Marking, Tempo and Width" before signing them to make sure it fits in with your style? (only used those as the rest you can see in attributes)

I'm saying that each player should have a slider bar, essentially, that displays their current 'favoured' in each of those areas. I'm not saying that it should be a case of "of my god, his mentality is so defensive i can't sign him", but something that would a) make sense in real life and b) add to the match preparation area of the game.

So let's say you sign ronaldo, and his mentality is full, but you play with a mentality where your strikers are only half - he might play higher up the pitch than you like, while he becomes familiar.

At the moment it just feels a bit fake and unrealistic - my match prep reaches full, I sign almost a full new squad of players in the off season, but the familiarity is still completely full.

Actually as i'm typing, i just realised this might already be in the game, just not in such a visual format, having remembered looking at my assistants feedback at some point and it saying "Chris O'Grade is used to playing a more direct style than he is being asked to".............. How much does this actually effect the game, and do the players learn to your style!?

The player familiarity then would shift throughout their career depending at what club they're playing, and what style they play. Could make it interesting, signing a player that doesn't perform AS well until they're familiar with your style as opposed to the whole team gradually improving

It's a good idea. Then you should think before you buy a player from S. Americal for example if you're a PL club. But first there should be different football styles introduced in FM.

I'm saying that each player should have a slider bar, essentially, that displays their current 'favoured' in each of those areas. I'm not saying that it should be a case of "of my god, his mentality is so defensive i can't sign him", but something that would a) make sense in real life and b) add to the match preparation area of the game.

So let's say you sign ronaldo, and his mentality is full, but you play with a mentality where your strikers are only half - he might play higher up the pitch than you like, while he becomes familiar.

At the moment it just feels a bit fake and unrealistic - my match prep reaches full, I sign almost a full new squad of players in the off season, but the familiarity is still completely full.

Actually as i'm typing, i just realised this might already be in the game, just not in such a visual format, having remembered looking at my assistants feedback at some point and it saying "Chris O'Grade is used to playing a more direct style than he is being asked to".............. How much does this actually effect the game, and do the players learn to your style!?

It is a good question,and without doing any testing its one I cant answer. I think you are right that it is a bit unrealistic though, and I think that being able to get this information would be great, you would perhaps need to scout the player over a month or so to really see how he plays week in week out but it could definitely add something

At the moment it just feels a bit fake and unrealistic - my match prep reaches full, I sign almost a full new squad of players in the off season, but the familiarity is still completely full.

This surely isn't realistic when bringing new players. Especially when there are many. Player roles should be conected with training/match prep. I don't think a player who is able to play in 4 or 5 positions would be able to play effectivly some 15 different roles. I think players should be limited on how many roles they can play, should train them and should become unhappy if you give them roles they're not prepared to play. Cristiano-Defensive Winger comes to my mind..

As for your question I doubt it has much effect.

yeah I think there's a lot of scope with this area of the game. To be honest, it's still relatively new so these kind of things might be seen in future versions anyway - we don't know the direction SI are taking with it, just some food for thought I guess.

And my point exactly Mitja. I think it's very unrealistic that I can just sign a full squad of players when my match preperation is full, and the match preperation doesn't shift in any way shape or form.

Good point about roles too - Of course, you'd have to get rid of the ability to change individual sliders for player roles to have a real effect, because as soon as you change just one individual slider, they're no longer playing EXACTLY as that role suggests.